“Crowdfunding for babies”: Glow selects the first women for a group effort to get pregnant

Healthcare startup Glow has selected the first group of women to participate in its Glow First fertility treatment fund. The aim of this program is to support hopeful mothers and help offset the high cost of fertility treatment if conception isn’t possible within a 10 month period.

Started by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, Glow sets out to help reduce the cost of healthcare through the use of data. The company launched in August and has initially set its sights on improving fertility whereby women can use its app to best track when is the right time to try and conceive.

But it’s more than an app. With the Glow Fund, healthy women who participate will contribute $50 per month for 10 months that is put into a fund. At the end of that term, the pot is used to help those that are unsuccessful at becoming pregnant — those that become pregnant in that time period can stop making payments into the fund.

Glow says that no cash exchanges hands — it will cut a check to the woman’s fertility clinic only after they’ve submitted proof of initial screening. To help jumpstart the fund, Levchin has seeded $1 million of his own money.

➤ Glow is proud to announce the inaugural Glow First group!

Photo credit: WALTRAUD GRUBITZSCH/AFP/Getty Images