Unravel Health raises £2.5m from Conduit EIS Impact Fund and Wrightwood
This article covers Unravel Health, a healthtech startup that has raised £2.5m in a seed funding round to accelerate development of the Micro Lab, a palm-sized saliva testing device that aims to deliver lab-grade hormone readings at home. The funding will support equivalency studies, the addition of more hormone markers and regulatory work ahead of planned early-access devices in 2027, targeting improved longitudinal hormone monitoring for patients and clinicians, particularly in women's health.
Unravel Health, a healthtech startup, has raised £2.5m in a seed funding round to accelerate development of the Micro Lab, a palm-sized saliva testing device that aims to deliver lab-grade hormone readings at home. The funding will bankroll equivalency studies, the addition of more hormone markers and the start of regulatory work as the company moves towards early-access devices in 2027.
Why it matters
Hormone levels fluctuate across days and life stages, and current testing options capture only snapshots or indirect estimates. Blood tests record hormone levels on a single day, while consumer wearables estimate trends but cannot measure hormones directly. A device that produces repeated, accurate hormone readings at home could change how people and clinicians monitor conditions that evolve over weeks and months, from puberty and menstrual cycles to perimenopause and hormone-related disorders.
Unravel positions its Micro Lab between laboratory blood tests and wearable monitoring, aiming to deliver longitudinal, clinically useful measurements without repeated clinic visits. That capability addresses a recognised data gap in women's health and could affect diagnosis, symptom management and clinical decision-making.
Inside the product
The Micro Lab is designed to measure the tiny quantities of hormones present in saliva rather than blood. Saliva carries the bioavailable forms of some hormones, but concentrations are far lower than in blood and have typically required full laboratory assays. Unravel says its platform achieves lab-grade sensitivity in a compact format.
The device is being built to read oestradiol alongside three other key hormones simultaneously, reflecting the reality that hormone-related health rarely depends on a single marker. The underlying technology was developed over ten years at the University of Glasgow and is protected by three granted patents. Unravel also says the platform has worked on other markers, including those relevant to heart health and prostate cancer, indicating potential to expand home testing beyond hormonal applications.
The roadmap set out by the company targets first early-access devices in 2027 through partners in pharmacy, digital health and clinical research, while conducting external equivalency studies and starting the regulatory approval process.
Who are the investors?
Unravel Health raised £2.5m in the seed funding round. The round had a first close of over £2m on 14 October and the company expects to complete the syndicate with final investors in the coming weeks.
Lead backers named in the announcement are Conduit EIS Impact Fund and Wrightwood. Participating investors include Leo Capital, Embryo Ventures, Hermesa and returning investor Zinc VC. Earlier support for the company came from a mix of public and non-dilutive sources and angels, including Innovate UK, the Medical Research Council and SBRI, alongside strategic angels and Zinc.
The company says the new capital will support external equivalency studies, development of additional markers and the start of regulatory submissions. That combination of clinical validation and regulatory work is intended to underpin the planned early-access rollout.
In the announcement, Eva-Maria Dimitriadis, Managing Partner at Conduit EIS Impact Fund, said:
Women's hormonal health is one of the largest under-served markets in healthcare, and the bottleneck has always been data. Unravel is solving a hard technical problem that many are trying to address: measuring multiple hormones accurately, longitudinally, and affordably. And they are doing it via saliva, at home, aiming for lab-grade sensitivity. The team pairs deep science with a clear view of what women and clinicians actually need. We're proud to lead this round and back them from a very early stage.
In the announcement, Henry Engelhardt, Wrightwood, said:
I invest in founders who are fixing problems that have been ignored for too long. Hormone-related conditions shape the daily lives of millions of women, yet the tools to understand them have barely changed in decades. Unravel's approach could change how these conditions are diagnosed and managed, and I'm delighted to support the team.
In the announcement, Rebecca Gill, Angel investor, said:
Perimenopause can creep up on you without you realising what's happening. For me it went on for some time. If what Unravel is building had existed five years ago, I could have seen it coming and been better prepared. I could have managed my symptoms, and maybe even stayed in a job I loved.
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Founder perspective
In the announcement, Veronika Bridgman, Co-founder & CEO, said:
People said nobody could climb Everest without oxygen, until someone did. Reading hormones in saliva outside a lab has been our Everest. Fifteen years ago I built my own hormone tracker to manage PCOS (now PMOS), because a blood test told me almost nothing about what my body was doing. Soon anyone will be able to bring the lab home to understand their symptoms.
Bridgman frames the product as the result of long-term technical work and lived experience, and as addressing the mismatch between episodic clinical testing and the continuous nature of many hormone-driven conditions.
The bigger picture
Unravel Health’s seed round sits within a broader push in the UK and Europe toward decentralised diagnostics and home health monitoring. If the Micro Lab can demonstrate reliable equivalency with laboratory assays and navigate regulatory approval, it would join a wave of devices aiming to shift testing out of clinics and into everyday settings.
Beyond women's hormones, the company points to early work on markers for heart health and prostate cancer as signals that the same measurement platform could be repurposed for other conditions. That broader applicability matters for investors, clinicians and regulators assessing the case for home-based diagnostics.
The outcome of Unravel’s validation and regulatory steps will be watched closely by clinicians and healthtech stakeholders across the UK as policymakers and funders continue to support innovation in home diagnostics and data-driven care.
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