- Dutch-Ukrainian biotech Gamow Tech raised an undisclosed Seed round from Ukrainian ZAS Ventures
- The startup develops AI-powered, non-invasive imaging to assess oocyte viability for IVF clinics
- ReSpindle, the company’s flagship product, analyzes egg cells to improve fertilization success, reduce cycles, and support embryologists
- Gamow Tech plans CE and FDA certifications, aiming to expand further and enhance patient outcomes globally
This October, the Dutch-Ukrainian biotech startup Gamow Tech secured an undisclosed Seed round of investment from the Ukrainian VC fund ZAS Ventures. The startup develops AI-powered, non-invasive imaging and analysis technology to assess the viability of human oocytes and improve fertilization success rates and overall efficiency of IVF (in vitro fertilization) clinics.
The Founding Story and Team Origins
As a legal entity, Gamow Tech is over a year old, but the team has been working together for nearly three years now. The founding team includes embryologist Pavlo Mazur, biophysicist Kostiantyn Hnennyi (CEO), and deep-tech entrepreneur Max Slyzkouh (CBDO). Former Reface specialist Davyd Maiboroda joined in somewhat later as the company’s CTO.
Both Mr Hnennyi and Mr Mazur hold biology degrees from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, while Mr Slyzkouh graduated from the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Mr Mazur, in turn, dedicated himself fully to embryology, achieving world-class success that earned him an invitation from Netflix to appear in their documentary Unnatural Selection.
Kostiantyn Hnennyi, Co-Founder and CEO at Gamow Tech
Mr Hnennyi’s graduation coincided with Ukraine’s 2014 revolution, and he admits to having been naively absorbed by the idea of reforms. He served as an advisor to the Minister of Economy, then with the Ministry of Finance, Ukrainian Railways, and the Ukrainian Parliament. When he realized that reforms stalled, he transitioned to Forbes Ukraine as an analyst for five years. Mr Slyzkouh, on the other hand, always envisioned himself in startups and the private sector. Before the full-scale war, he assisted large organizations with their digital transformation.
The CEO-to-be had been nurturing ideas about advancing civilization in an impactful way since his graduation but constantly postponed them, admittedly deeming them often as no more than childish dreams and storing them in a ‘do it later’ folder. Then the war came and revealed how fragile life is, making the founder bolder and more decisive.
The founding team decided to name their company after George Gamow, an Odesa-born versatile scientist from the first half of the 20th century with outstanding scientific achievements and a bold life path.
Mission and Vision: AI for IVF
What Mr Hnennyi’s team built is a deep-tech startup specializing in AI solutions for reproductive medicine. The company focuses on improving IVF success rates and efficiency through advanced data analytics and imaging technologies. On a mission to make assisted reproduction more precise, accessible, and patient-friendly, Gamow Tech empowers embryologists with objective, science-driven tools.
The company’s flagship AI-driven system is called ReSpindle. It uses computer vision to analyze microscopic images of human oocytes and assess their viability before fertilization. The technology provides a non-invasive, data-based evaluation of egg quality, helping clinicians select the most promising cells without damaging them. By integrating seamlessly into existing IVF lab workflows, ReSpindle aims to boost fertilization success rates, reduce treatment cycles, and improve outcomes for patients and clinics alike.
Andrew Zinchuk, Founder and Managing Partner at ZAS Ventures
‘ReSpindle is pioneering a breakthrough in women’s health and reproductive medicine. Their technology addresses one of the largest unmet needs in IVF — identifying viable egg cells before fertilization without invasive intervention,’ ZAS Ventures’ founder and managing partner Andrew Zinchuk states.
Today, Gamow Tech can boast about R&D agreements with nine IVF centres across different countries (covering more than 1% of the global market), adapting the R&D process to different lab protocols, equipment, and regional regulatory norms. According to Mr Slyzkouh, this is a lot of extensive work of finding proper individual approaches for each clinic. Because Gamow Tech’s R&D covers the most widely adopted equipment configurations and SOP (standard operating procedures) protocols, the company can scale its onboarding procedure for the majority of IVF centers worldwide.
Balancing AI and the Human Touch, Addressing Ethics, Privacy, and Data Governance
It’s no secret how deeply sensitive IVF and assisted reproductive technologies are to both science and patient emotion. This raises challenges (or even fears) concerning balancing the AI/automation aspect with preserving the human-touch, clinician oversight, and patient trust aspects.
‘Indeed, working with patients involves not only objective but also emotional components. ReSpindle is well-adapted for IVF clinics where it doesn’t replace the embryologist, their experience, or qualifications. Instead, it provides them with an additional tool to assess the prospects of successful pregnancy. We reduce the embryologist’s workload and stress as our AI helps them evaluate the fine microstructure of the oocyte and draw conclusions about the future embryo’s viability. As for patients, they will only welcome the use of innovation that carries no risks, but can bring them closer to their desired child,’ Mr Hnennyi explains.
Given the sensitive nature of IVF, a number of ethical, privacy, and data-governance challenges (namely, ownership of the image data, patient consent, AI bias in reproductive outcomes) arise, requiring a certain level of legal framework. Gamow Tech addresses those by signing agreements with each clinic, specifying all nuances of data collection, processing, and storage, including informed patient consent and approval from the clinic’s ethics committee. Gamow Tech assures that ReSpindle only collects anonymized data and no personal patient information Importantly, the product carries no theoretical risks to patient health, which simplifies our regulatory burden.
The Path to Certification
Max Slyzkouh, Co-Founder and CBDO at Gamow Tech
Regulation-wise, Gamow Tech is currently focused on obtaining the CE Mark for the EU market and FDA approval for the US. Access to other markets should be significantly facilitated after getting certified in the EU and/or US.
‘There are no major technical challenges – we’ll need to implement some mandatory systems, such as quality control, but we’re prepared for this,’ Mr Hnennyi assures.
‘The current fundraise assists us in financing prior R&D collaborations and obtaining key regulations. We expect to receive primary clinical validation required by regulators in the next 10–12 months, certification will take another 1–2 years,’ Mr Slyzkouh adds.
Business Model and Market Approach
In terms of business model, once clinical validation and certification are complete, Mr Hnennyi refers to feedback from our current users and believes that a per-use pricing model works best for both Gamow Tech and the IVF centers.
‘Reimbursement is crucial in some markets, especially in the EU, where insurance or government programs cover a significant share of IVF cycles. Fortunately, our indirect competitors who assess embryo morphology have already established a reimbursement code in the Netherlands and some other EU countries that we can leverage through a simplified application process. However, covering major EU countries’ reimbursement systems still takes years, as each has its own specifications and procedure. Once it’s done, it becomes our valuable asset and secure stable revenue flow on the EU assisted reproduction market,’ the CBDO comments.
‘While we’re going through this path, we’re not putting all our go-to-market eggs in one reimbursement basket. We’re actively expanding into markets where patients pay for a significant share of cycles. These are mostly emerging markets, but even in the EU there are strong opportunities. Spain and France, for example, have tens of thousands of patient-paid cycles every year,’ Mr Slyzkouh continues.
Growing Global Demand and Next Steps on a Mission to Transform IVF Success Rates
The founders share that in parallel, Gamow Tech has 29 more IVF centers interested in participating in the company’s R&D, but they have to be put on hold because Gamow Tech currently has limited resources and capacity at its disposal. The company already has to look for additional investments to start R&D with those and claim not 1%, but almost 4% of the global market.
The Gamow Tech team is positively convinced that ReSpindle is poised to change the assisted reproduction market dramatically once mass-adopted.
‘Most IVF patients are women of advanced maternal age. They either pay for PGT-A, which almost doubles the treatment price, or play roulette with a 1/10 chance. In many countries, they can’t even purchase PGT-A except in special cases due to ethical reasons. We checked UK IVF market reports with the number of patients’ cycles and results, and we can see a clear pattern: ~50% of patients give up with each additional cycle if they don’t get pregnant. These reports don’t include advanced maternal age patients who gave up after talking to a psychologist about the 1/10 chances explanation. It’s terrible,’ Mr Slyzkouh points out.
In this situation, Gamow Tech sees its mission in increasing these patients’ chances to 1/3 or even 1/2 and making it possible with just an additional payment of 2–3% of the IVF cycle cost, facilitating the access to IVF for millions of families annually.
Gamow Tech’s ReSpindle indeed represents a breakthrough at the intersection of AI and reproductive medicine, addressing one of the most emotionally and scientifically complex areas of healthcare. By enabling non-invasive, data-driven assessment of oocyte viability, the company empowers clinicians to make more accurate decisions while preserving patient safety and trust. In doing so, Gamow Tech improves IVF success rates, bringing new hope to uncountable families striving to conceive worldwide.
Kostiantyn is a freelance writer from Crimea but based in Lviv. He loves writing about IT and high tech because those topics are always upbeat and he’s an inherent optimist!
