Persperity Health, Inc., a new company spun out of Caltech, announced today it has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding to accelerate the development of its groundbreaking sweat-sensing technology, set to transform women’s health by providing real-time, non-invasive hormonal insights.
Led by Freeflow Ventures with participation from Caltech, Wilson Hill Ventures, Heritage Group, and ATMA Capital, this investment underscores the revolutionary potential of Persperity’s platform to redefine personalized health monitoring.
Exclusively licensed from Caltech and developed by Dr. Wei Gao and Dr. Cui Ye, Persperity Health’s advanced technology enables real-time hormone monitoring through device-based sweat analysis. This innovation grants women unprecedented access to personalized health data, fundamentally changing how they and their providers can manage fertility and menopause care.
“If you look at what’s commercially available, devices can track heartbeat and steps, but they aren’t capable of studying your health at a molecular level,” said Dr. Wei Gao, co-founder and inventor of the core technology at Persperity Health.
“By analyzing sweat, our device provides detailed information about what’s happening inside your body. Once you realize the potential of sweat for health monitoring, it’s hard to go back to conventional methods.”
Sweat contains a wealth of information about hormonal health, including critical hormones like estradiol, progesterone, and luteinizing hormone (LH), which are vital to women’s reproductive health and overall well-being. Persperity’s technology leverages a non-invasive process called iontophoresis to induce sweat on demand, allowing women to monitor their hormone levels anytime, anywhere—without strenuous exercise or invasive procedures.
Persperity Health is also proud to announce its involvement in a prestigious $3 million ARPA-H Spark Award aimed at accelerating innovation in women’s health. Spearheaded by Principal Investigator Dr. Wei Gao at Caltech, the project was one of only 23 awardees selected from over 1,700 global applicants to advance a wearable sweat-sensing system for chronic pain assessment, especially benefiting women.
Dr. Pauline M. Maki, a renowned expert in women’s cognitive health and menopause and a co-investigator on the grant, emphasized the project’s significance, stating: “This innovative technology has the potential to transform women’s health research by enabling, for the first time, the non-invasive collection of biological markers in sweat, including estrogen—a crucial factor in numerous health conditions that disproportionately affect women, such as migraine.“
Dr. Heather Lukas, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Persperity Health, highlighted the broader implications: “We’re not just creating another wearable device; we’re unlocking a new dimension of personalized health monitoring. By making the invisible visible, we’re empowering women to understand their bodies like never before. This is more than a technological advancement—it’s a revolution in women’s health.”
With the infusion of new capital, Persperity Health will accelerate product development, pursue strategic partnerships, and navigate the regulatory approval process. The company’s long-term vision includes expanding its platform to analyze additional biomarkers, with potential applications in mental health, stress management, and early detection of other women’s health issues.
About Persperity Health
Persperity Health is at the forefront of health technology innovation, pioneering sweat-sensing technology to revolutionize continuous health monitoring. Focused on women’s health, the company’s platform delivers real-time, actionable insights into hormonal health, fertility, and menopause. Led by co-founders CEO Shiv Shukla, Dr. Wei Gao, and Dr. Heather Lukas, with clinical collaborator Dr. Pauline Maki, Persperity Health is dedicated to improving how women monitor their health with non-invasive, personalized solutions.
