This startup is using AI to close gaps in women’s healthcare

When Kelly Lacob was 14 years old, her mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. After 14 years in remission, the cancer returned during Lacob’s first year at Stanford Graduate School of Business. She graduated and moved home to care for her mother full time, becoming her primary caregiver. The experience gave her a close view of the gaps in women’s health care. “Even when we have access to great quality healthcare, we still have so many questions of what should we be asking the doctor,” says Lacob. “‘How do we know about the latest emergent research?’ ‘What else are you doing to support my mother’s health?’” The experience also pointed Lacob to a larger problem. Women’s health remains underfunded and underrepresented, with research suggesting that it accounts for only 6% of private health care investment. That gap has slowed scientific progress and left many women struggling for diagnoses. [Photo: Xella Health] Two and a half years ago, the biotechnology executive Adriana Dantas approached Lacob with an idea for a company that could enable earlier detection of conditions affecting women. Lacob was immediately interested. “Over the next few months, what we ended up doing was, we looked at my mother’s healthcare journey and we said, ‘What are the ways where women’s health could be dramatically improved?'” says Lacob. Lacob, Dantas, and Jesus Ching, another biosciences executive, went on to found Xella Health, which launched Wednesday morning and is available in every state except New York and New Jersey. The company hopes to expand into those states by 2027. An AI-powered precision health platform built exclusively for people with XX chromosomes, Xella Health is backed by $4.7 million in funding from investors including Precursor Ventures, Capital F, and Ulu Ventures. “[We wanted to] make precision healthcare as accessible to as many women as possible, which right now, is so exclusive and elite,” Lacob says. Xella Healt