“You can track your hormones every day. It takes just a few seconds.” Interview with OVUL, winner of Startup Competition 2025

OVUL is a Ukrainian health-tech company that creates a reusable gadget and app that track women’s hormonal balance on a daily basis using saliva and AI algorithms. The company won the Startup Competition at this year’s IT Arena. 

AIN spoke with OVUL co-founders Ihor Kovalenko and Serhii Zatsarynin to learn more about their participation in IT Arena, the history of the device’s creation, and the company’s plans for the future.

Winning at IT Arena

What are your impressions of participating in IT Arena?

Ihor: Participating in IT Arena was an extremely important event for us. Winning confirmed the significance of our solution on the market and its necessity for women. This is the result of long and intense work by the entire team, numerous trainings, and rehearsals. We are proud of this achievement because it confirms that our approach is necessary and valuable.

Serhii: There were no organizational difficulties: communication was transparent, and all processes were clearly planned. The team carefully prepared the pitch, worked out messages for the target audience, and rehearsed the presentations many times. We received great support from IT Arena mentors, previous winners, and the Mosquitter team, who helped with advice on preparing and organizing the presentation.

Apart from winning, what other benefits or opportunities did participating in IT Arena bring you?

Ihor: I have been actively attending various events for a year now and constantly communicating with people in the industry. Everyone knows me, and I know many people — it’s a very warm and friendly relationship.

At every event, you find yourself among familiar people who support you. Even at startup competitions, the competition doesn’t feel unhealthy: the community is as friendly and supportive as possible.

For us, networking is not only about exchanging experiences, but also about new collaborations. We have already established valuable contacts with other participants, in particular with the HEFT team, which took second place.

History of creation

Tell us more about OVUL. How did the idea for its creation come about?

Serhii: There are currently six core members in the team. The total number of people is up to 15.

The story began at the end of 2022. My wife and I were planning to have a third child. At that time, I was working at Siemens Healthineers as the head of diagnostics, responsible for all blood, urine, and other tests. Siemens Healthineers is one of the largest companies in the field of diagnostics.

At home, I had test strips that you dip in urine and look at the result. I was used to building large laboratories, and at home I just looked at the strips as they changed color. I was shocked by how outdated the approach was. I told my wife that this was not acceptable. That’s how our work on OVUL began.

I knew what he did for a living, so I asked, “Can you solder a small microscope and tell me how much it will cost?” He said he could. I thought it would cost $300–400, so I was very surprised when he said, “We can do it for under $50.”

That was the moment our startup began. The microscope became the symbolic beginning of OVUL. We just talked about the idea on Friday evening. We sat, did our own thing, and discussed our plans. On Monday, I brought a simple Chinese plastic microscope for children. 

We put our wives’ saliva on slides. We took a cell phone camera and started the experiment. And it worked right away. That was on December 6, 2022. I remembered my wife’s ovulation, and we observed superpatterns at that very moment. That was our first PoC.

A month after New Year’s, Ihor and I figured out who was responsible for what and how to move forward. The first prototype of OVUL, already in the shape of an egg, was made in February and sent to gynecologists for real-world testing.

Do you have any statistics on the use of your solution? How many active users does OVUL have?

Today, we have 133 monthly users. In total, about 250–300 devices are used worldwide, and this number has been growing since day one.

How did you raise the initial funding for OVUL’s development? 

Serhii: Ihor and I started out together and were the first investors in our own project. At our first meetings, we discussed how much we could invest ourselves. We understood that we had limited resources and planned to spend them on prototyping and developing the first version. That’s what we did: for about nine to ten months, the two of us worked together to develop the project.

We immediately realized that we lacked expertise in marketing and scaling the product to the international level. Since we create solutions for women’s health, we needed expertise in working with end users.

To strengthen the team, we expanded it to four founders. Kateryna Andreeva joined us as our marketing officer. She had successful experience in launching businesses in the food, restaurant, and catering industries. Kateryna brought deep expertise in B2C marketing and an insider’s view of the user experience.

Roman Godz, who has extensive experience in building international businesses from scratch, also joined the team. Together, we continued to work according to the bootstrap model, investing our own funds and developing the project as a team of four.

How the app works

What additional features does OVUL have?

We started with the problem of ovulation because it was our personal challenge that we really wanted to solve. At first, we focused only on this area and even built our sales around pregnancy assistance. But after six months, when we began to actively develop the product, we returned to talking with users. This is something that should always be done.

We had six cases where our pilot users from our close circle received results with suspiciously high estrogen levels. We advised them to see a doctor — and six of them were diagnosed with endometriosis at a very early stage. That was the moment of realization: our product is not just about ovulation, but about something much bigger.

We realized that it is possible to track hormones on a daily basis. It only takes a few seconds: just do a saliva test and then combine the results with real life. How do you feel? How physically active are you? What do you eat? All of this can be combined into a single solution that allows you to better understand your body and influence it.

Since May of last year, we have had 18 users who take tests almost every day — an average of 25 days per month. They say that this gives them a sense of control over their lives: they see hormone trends, understand how to plan for the next month, what affects their well-being, and what changes they can make today. That’s where we are right now.

Do you use user feedback to improve the app? 

Ihor: We received feedback from users that they want to get practical benefits from our app every day. That’s why two weeks ago we released an updated version that includes daily tips. These tips are not only for those who want to identify specific problems, but also for women who want to better balance their lives according to their hormonal status.

Estrogen affects mood, physical condition, and mental activity. That’s why we create personalized tips for each day — on nutrition, physical activity, and cognitive load. All recommendations are based on the user’s individual biomarkers.

Serhii: Our knowledge base includes about 2,500 scientific publications from Stanford and Oxford. In addition, we are participants in the Google for Startups program. Our mentor is one of the leading developers of artificial intelligence systems at Google, and he helps us build the architecture of our solution.

The system analyzes scientific data, identifies correlations, and generates short, understandable tips — literally two or three sentences in the app. They are based on real research and adapted to the user’s daily context.

We also have an advisor from Stanford — Michael Snyder, head of the laboratory that bears his name. He advises us on the scientific side. This allows us to offer simple and accurate recommendations in three areas: body, mind, and nutrition.

How do you implement AI to improve OVUL’s performance?

Igor: Our system has three levels of artificial intelligence.

• The first level is Image Recognition. The microscope transmits images, and the algorithm recognizes patterns and designs. This was our starting technology, where it all began.

• The second level is a support chatbot. It answers users’ questions by learning from their real inquiries. We started with 630 questions, and now the database is constantly growing. The bot can independently resolve most requests and only forwards complex cases to the support team.

• The third level is AI for personalized advice. It generates recommendations based on a large database of scientific data, rather than blogs or open internet sources. This is the most technically challenging level, but it provides users with concise, effective, and scientifically sound advice.

Serhii: Thanks to these technologies, we see real changes in our users: more stable cycles, improvement of the fertile window, reduction of estrogen dominance. And this inspires our entire team to further develop the product.

I started working in diagnostics in my fourth year of university. At that time, I was already working as a medical equipment installer in a laboratory. And I was asked, “What standards should we use?” This was a real case from around 2010–2011. I was a student and knew very little, only how to set up the equipment correctly. And I was asked about standards and normal indicators for women at that time.

I realized that there was a problem with diagnostics. The laboratory should have known these norms, because they tested hundreds or thousands of women. It turned out that the norms are very personalized: some people have high estrogen levels, some have average levels, and some have low levels. And you can only find this out through regular monitoring.

That is why the third level of our artificial intelligence is so complex. We analyze not only current indicators, but also the history of your cycles — previous ones, three cycles back, and more. This allows us to see personalized hormone trends. And if there are changes that differ from individual norms, the system can signal: “This is worth paying attention to.”

About the company’s plans for the future

How does the company plan to use the funds raised at IT Arena?

What drives us most about OVUL is that no one before us has ever taken photos of dried saliva. We are the only company in the world that has such datasets.

As we are the first to do this, we have noticed that the patterns in the photos relate not only to estrogen, but also to other aspects that were previously unknown. We have launched a second clinical study, funded by the decentralized women’s association AthenaDAO. This study allows us to understand how stress and water consumption affect the fertile window, ovulation, and hormones.

We allocate investments in two main areas. The first is marketing and sales, as this is an ongoing process. The second is app development. We plan to add the ability to track the impact of specific factors on each woman. For example, does coffee at 11:00 a.m. affect headaches, and how can changing the time of consumption change symptoms on certain days of the cycle? This will allow us to link habits to hormone levels and ovulation patterns.

We are also creating a personalized trend map that will show what exactly affects a specific user. This tool will enable women to better understand themselves and their cycle. 

Which markets are you focusing on now? Are you planning to enter the Ukrainian market?

Of course, we would like to enter all markets at once, but that is not possible. We are currently working in the US market: this is the key direction we are moving in and where we see the greatest opportunities to realize our value. We started with ovulation testing, as it is directly related to the problem of fertility. 

This problem is particularly acute in the US, which is why we chose this market to launch our product. At the same time, we remain committed to Ukraine: the first clinical trials took place here, we collaborate with doctors, and we continue to work locally.

Next, we are looking at other regions — Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America (particularly Brazil). Thanks to the experience I gained at Siemens Healthineers, we know how to launch partnership programs and collaborate with local distributors. This is the approach we plan to use now. We don’t want to enter new markets on our own, because even large companies don’t have the resources to do so. Instead, we are looking for partners who will become the leaders of our solutions in their countries.

This process is already underway, and we have made considerable progress. However, it is still too early to talk about exact launch dates on new continents. But we are confidently moving in this direction.

Are you already planning to apply for other competitions, programs, or additional funding? 

Serhii: We managed to get into TechCrunch’s top 200 startups. At the end of October, we are going there with a booth and presentations. Next week, we are participating in San Francisco Tech Week. We are also participating in the grand finale of the Minnesota Cup.

We previously won L’Oreal Startup Hub 2.0, which was very important, but immediately after that, new challenges arose. The startup process never stops: there are constant competitions, presentations, and preparations for pitches. TechCrunch Top 200 is one of the most important events of the year for us. We are delighted to be on the list of the world’s most promising companies.

Ihor: September was the peak of activity in Ukraine: in just one month, I took part in three startup competitions and spoke at four events. That’s a total of seven events in 30 days. The startup community requires constant presence: you have to be on trend, communicate with other founders, and compare your product with competitors. This motivates and helps you evaluate your own mission realistically.

In addition to our current activities, we plan to apply for several more acceleration programs. Among them are Terminal Four and Meta Accelerator, which specialize in sales and marketing. This is a new level of development for our product.

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