Gabbi raises US$4.4m to advance breast cancer early detection

The US risk assessment and care navigation company Gabbi has raised US$4.4m to support breast cancer early detection.

Gabbi will provide a solution that will include risk assessment results, personalised ongoing care plans and a care concierge and deliver results for women of all ages and ethnicities to enable proactive action.

It will launch at the beginning of 2023 via employers who will be able to provide Gabbi as a benefit to their employees.

The round led by Bread and Butter Ventures saw participation from Female Founders Fund, WR Hambrecht, Phoenix Rising, Claridge Ventures Advisors VC, Coyote Ventures, Gaingels as well as angels including David Kidder, Sarah Jones Simmer and Naseem Sayani.

The financing will go towards funding team growth and product development to empower women to take control of their health.

“Just as streaming platforms have paired user specific behaviours, hyper personalisation and a vast library of media content  to deliver a 100 per cent unique user by user experience, Gabbi is, for the first time in the healthcare space, pairing individual women’s input with vast amounts of clinical data and tested medical standards to deliver more accurate risk profiles for women of all ages and races in the comfort and intimacy of their own home,” said Kaitlin Christine, founder and CEO of Gabbi.

“I know firsthand the difference of a timely diagnosis – when caught early, the five-year survival rate is 99 per cent.

“Everyone should have the tools that allow them to understand their risk and get access to the appropriate care.”

Kaitlin Christine, founder of Gabbi

Christine lost her mother to breast cancer ten years ago after a delayed diagnosis.

She was then diagnosed with cancer herself during a preventative mastectomy when she was 24 years old.

Since then, the founder has dedicated her career to trying to change the paradigm around delayed diagnosis.

The five year survival rate for a late diagnosis is 31 per cent. Gabbi aims to change that by utilising data through GRAM – Gabbi Risk Assessment Model – a proprietary machine learning risk model that takes into account four different categories of data.

Mary Grove, general partner at Bread and Butter Ventures, said: “We are thrilled to back Kaitlin and the Gabbi team in their critical mission.

“Their unique approach of leveraging data to predict risk and ultimately empower women to have more ownership of their health outcomes is transformative.

“Gabbi’s laser focus on women age 21-49 who are historically not included in these screenings changes the access game for all.”

Christine recently shared that Grove and other investors supporting the company understand the issue and have a deep connection to the mission of advancing breast cancer diagnosis through a personal or family experience.