This Palm-Sized Lab Could Let You Track Hormones at Home

Jan de Vries · 2026-10-16

Imagine being able to check your hormone levels at home, any day of the month, without a trip to the lab. That's exactly what Unravel Health is working on. The London-based startup just raised $3.2 million (€2.96 million) to develop the Micro Lab – a device the size of your palm that reads multiple hormones from a saliva sample in minutes. The round was led by Conduit EIS Impact Fund and Wrightwood, with participation from Leo Capital, Embryo Ventures, Hermesa, and returning investor Zinc VC. This brings the total funding to over $4.4 million, including previous grants and investments. ### The Problem with Hormone Testing Today If you've ever tried to track your hormones, you know the struggle. A blood test gives you a snapshot of one moment in time, but hormones fluctuate constantly. Wearables can track daily patterns, but they only estimate levels – they don't give you actual numbers. "People said nobody could climb Everest without oxygen, until someone did," says Veronika Bridgman, co-founder and CEO of Unravel Health. "Reading hormones in saliva outside a lab has been our Everest." Bridgman speaks from experience. Fifteen years ago, she built her own hormone tracker to manage PCOS (now PMOS) because blood tests weren't giving her the full picture. That personal frustration sparked the idea for Unravel Health. ### How the Micro Lab Works The Micro Lab is designed to measure four key hormones simultaneously, including oestradiol (the main form of estrogen). The technology was developed over ten years at the University of Glasgow and is protected by three granted patents. Here's the cool part: it uses saliva, which contains hormones in tiny amounts – so small that normally only a lab can measure them. Unravel claims their device can achieve lab-grade sensitivity right in your home. "Women's health rarely comes down to one hormone," the company explains. "Hormones shift throughout the month, but a blood test captures a single day. Wearables track every day but can only estimate hormone levels. The Micro Lab sits between the two, giving real hormone readings at home, day after day, at every stage of life from puberty to perimenopause." ### What the Funding Will Do The new funding will support external equivalency studies, the development of additional markers, and the start of the regulatory approval process. The goal is to have the first early-access devices in 2027, through partners in pharmacy, digital health, and clinical research. > "Women's hormonal health is one of the largest under-served markets in healthcare, and the bottleneck has always been data. Unravel is solving a hard technical problem that many are trying to address: measuring multiple hormones accurately, longitudinally, and affordably. And they are doing it via saliva, at home, aiming for lab-grade sensitivity." – Eva-Maria Dimitriadis, Managing Partner at Conduit EIS Impact Fund ### Beyond Women's Health While women's hormones are the first application, the underlying technology has already been used to measure other markers, such as those for heart health and prostate cancer. This means the Micro Lab could eventually bring many more lab tests into the home, making healthcare more accessible and convenient for everyone. ### The Bigger Picture Unravel Health's journey is a great example of how startups are tackling big problems with innovative solutions. By combining deep science with a clear understanding of what patients and clinicians need, they're not just building a product – they're building a data layer for hormone-linked health. And if they succeed, it could change the way we think about hormone testing. No more waiting for appointments, no more one-off snapshots. Just real, actionable data, whenever you need it. So next time you hear someone say "you can't measure hormones at home," you might just say, "watch this space."