Why I invested in Contraline

I’m really excited to have been able to invest in Contraline. Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, Contraline is a medical device company developing the first long-lasting, non-hormonal, and reversible male contraceptive.

The company was started by a founder (fellow immigrant!) who is passionate about giving men more options and responsibility in contraception. He wrote essays to get into college about the lack of a male birth control pill and has been working tirelessly to recruit a strong team of scientists with an actual lab and tangible progress towards clinical trials. If successful, the product would be game-changing, and I acknowledge the risks are very large and probability of success low. I like that the founder is so committed to seeing his vision turn into reality. I’m proud to have invested alongside Jason Calacanis, Mike Savino, LAUNCH, Founders Fund, FundRx, and Abstract Ventures.

I’m personally excited about the company because the options for men are indeed very limited (either not very effective or permanent and painful). 73% of couples in the world rely on female partners for contraception. I believe the societal and social impact from giving men more options and responsibility would greatly benefit gender relations and couple dynamics overall. And I like that there are defensible scientific advances at the core of this technology that have the chance to be executed upon by a good team.

Couples and physicians can register their interest in Contraline here:
http://www.contraline.com/participate

Here is recent press coverage on the company:
TechCrunch, WMRA

What I love:

• Immigrant founder maniacal about his vision
• Built strong scientific team
• 8 patents filed
• Actual running operations in a lab, making good progress through milestones
• Product is differentiated from competition

Risks:

• Difficult, long, expensive, risky process to get to FDA approval
• Full product technology value proposition still not entirely proven out
• Need to get physicians on board to promote and incorporate it into their practices