Wednesday, 17 June 2026

A Stanford founded startup says a wearable and voice biomarker system can detect cycle phases and hormonal shifts in minutes, promising more personalized care.

As highlighted by Techcrunch

Jenny Duan and Abhinav Agarwal, Stanford graduates, have taken on an ambitious task: to fuse a stylish wearable gadget with the ability to precisely measure hormones, helping women better understand and control their health.

Clair Health aims to track inflammatory markers and bloating, energy levels, and classify the phases of the menstrual cycle, providing insights into cycle irregularities and perimenopause, as well as hormonal fluctuations and ways to adapt to them.

Clair Health’s work is supported by $11.6 million in funding led by Khosla Ventures with participation from a16z speedrun accelerator programs, Brydge Club, Treehub, Cartan Capital, AGI House, Insiders VC, Anna Wojcicki and Stephanie Coleman.

To collect data specific to each user, Clair Health is introducing a voice onboarding procedure that helps better understand their health markers. The company also claims to have trained its own artificial neural network to analyze voice biomarkers and determine the cycle phase in just a few minutes of conversation.

“What we’ve found is that in women’s health and in the current state of apps, women can’t convey many symptoms because apps are designed for only a few. With our voice stack, we give users a way to report their issues the way they want.”

– Jenny Duan

How Clair Health’s wearable works

According to Clair Health, the device helps identify the causes of hormonal shifts and the body’s response to them by analyzing signals from targeted biomarkers. It enables continuous monitoring of the four phases of the menstrual cycle and is not limited to just the day of the period. Based on these markers, the app yields insights into rate of aging, level of inflammation, bloating, and perceived burden.

Clair Health also plans to support women during menopause and perimenopause by providing more data to share with healthcare professionals, allowing for more comprehensive and specific support compared with traditional symptom descriptions.

Jenny Duan said that her interest in women’s health grew while working at a nonprofit organization in Portland, Oregon, during her studies. She later took a Stanford course focused on women’s health and nonprofits, where she met Agarwal.

According to Clair Health, the device uses 10 biosensors, including a new biomagnetic sensor to obtain hormonal insights. Traditional gadgets, such as the Apple Watch or Pixel Watch, rely on a gyroscope, optical/PPG sensor, and a temperature sensor, which are not sufficient for full tracking of hormonal health.

“To date, there has not been any device, invasive or noninvasive, that could monitor hormones in real time and pinpoint the source of the problem. We didn’t start with the idea of creating a specific hardware node. We simply wanted to track hormones continuously.”

– Duan

The company also says it is developing its own model based on a range of female-health biomarkers, has partnerships and access to millions of electronic medical records and long-term health data. With such sources, Clair Health plans to generate insights into endometriosis, PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder), perimenopause, and other conditions.

The startup is currently testing the device in a closed beta cohort and plans to ship the first units in November at a price of $369, including a monthly subscription of $9.99. Pre-orders are already open.

Investor Treehub, Mari Minno, a resident closely connected with Stanford and supported by AI Health Fund, emphasized that Clair Health is solving the problem of providing women with practical data about hormonal health.

“Users want a product that does what it promises. Measuring hormonal health today remains archaic – my perimenopause friends still draw blood to assess the effectiveness of hormonal procedures. From the start, Clair aims to offer a product that sheds light on what previously required drawing blood.”

– Mari Minno

Various startups in the hormone health space are testing different approaches: Level Zero Health focuses on continuous monitoring through wearables, Hormona relies on home tests, and Ourself Health uses artificial intelligence to draw conclusions from user-entered data. Clair Health sees its future in expanding data access by integrating with medical records and other data sources to make women’s health care more personalized and proactive.

Currently Clair Health is preparing for further expansion, focusing on endometriosis and other gynecological issues, considering partnerships and plans to release the device after November at the price of $369 and a monthly subscription of $9.99.

Growth in investment in Clair Health underscores venture investors’ interest in solutions that have the potential to make hormonal health more transparent and personalized, providing women with more complete and timely access to data for interacting with medical professionals.

In sum, Clair Health aims to revolutionize how hormones are measured by combining wearable technology, voice interaction, and artificial intelligence, which could change the way women monitor their health in daily life and interact with doctors.