Valencia, Spain — iPremom, a molecular diagnostics company dedicated to the earliest prediction of pregnancy complications, has raised €15m in seed funding led by Amadeus Capital Partners, with participation from Asabys Partners and APEX Ventures. The funding will support clinical validation and the commercial rollout of its MaiRa platform, which analyses early signals of first-trimester pregnancy complications through a simple blood test.
Pregnancy complications remain a major challenge for families and health systems worldwide, claiming 260,000[i] maternal lives, nearly 2 million[ii] babies stillborn at 28 weeks or more of gestation, and 2.3 million[iii] children in the first month of life annually. Preeclampsia alone now affects 5 to 8%[iv] of all pregnancies globally, while pre-term birth, foetal growth restriction, and gestational diabetes place further strain on families and health systems. Despite this, current diagnostic tools often identify risks only after complications have already begun to develop.
iPremom’s MaiRa platform is built on more than a decade of research by co-founders Professor Carlos Simón, MD, PhD, Chairman of iPremom, and Dr Tamara Garrido, Chief Scientific Officer. Their work shows that the molecular signals linked to pregnancy complications can be detected in maternal blood from the first trimester, well before clinical symptoms appear. In preeclampsia, for example, this is linked to decidualisation resistance, where the uterine lining does not develop as expected, leaving a detectable cell‑free RNA (cfRNA) signal in the blood as early as 9 to 14 weeks into the pregnancy.
Using a single blood sample, clinicians can now use MaiRa to analyse cfRNA and use predictive modelling to assess risk across a range of pregnancy complications, such as preeclampsia, months before symptoms appear. The platform has been developed using real-life patient data from more than 26,000 samples, linked to 10,000 pregnancies that were part of the PREMOM study, one of Spain’s largest prospective clinical trials. This dataset is also already supporting the identification of molecular signals linked to a broader set of complications, which will be added to the platform over time.
Led by CEO Guillermo Ferrando Huertas, iPremom is focused on advancing clinical validation and scaling access to MaiRa. The platform is currently available in Spain through iPremom’s laboratory, and the funding will support its commercial launch, the completion of validation studies, and regulatory approvals in the EU and US.
Professor Carlos Simón, Co-Founder and Chairman of iPremom, said: “Pregnancy complications have been under-diagnosed and under-treated for generations, because the field was looking in the wrong place at the wrong time. Our ambition is not just to build a better preeclampsia test, it is to give every pregnant woman a comprehensive, early molecular picture of her pregnancy. This funding is a critical step toward making that a clinical reality.”
Pierre Socha, Partner at Amadeus Capital Partners, said: “We are delighted to partner again with Prof. Simón, after the success of Igenomix which transformed IVF genetics. iPremom is poised to do the same for prenatal care, an even larger market opportunity. By predicting risk from the first weeks of pregnancy based on a simple blood test, it will inform and prepare millions of expecting couples, arm clinicians with unparalleled insights for targeted intervention, and give every baby the best possible start in life. We are proud to be leading this round.”
[i] Trends in Maternal Mortality 2000-2023: Estimates by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group and UNDESA/Population Division | United Nations Population Fund
[ii] The future at risk: Tackling newborn and child mortality amidst a global health crisis – PMC
