In time for Mother’s Day: Ovatemp wants to boost women’s fertility

The arrival of Ana Mayer’s baby girl isn’t the only thing she’ll be thinking about this Mother’s Day.

Ovatemp co-founder Ana Mayer.

Mayer — who’s among the newest founders in the Techstars-led Sprint Mobile Health Accelerator in Kansas City — will also be mulling how to further develop Ovatemp, the Boston-based ovulation tech company she leads.

Ovatemp offers women the tools to track their ovulation patterns via a wireless thermometer and app to naturally avoid or enable pregnancy.

Mayer doesn’t need to look far for validation that her product works. One glance at her growing family will suffice.

“It worked for me — I have a one-year-old boy and a baby girl on the way,” she said. “We want to share that, and we really think we can help women that are struggling.”

Mayer’s idea for Ovatemp first arrived when she wanted to naturally avoid pregnancy. Eventually, when Mayer wanted to start a family with her husband and co-founder, Daniel Graf, she used her tracking technique to become a mother. Achieving pregnancy, however, isn’t as simple as a bottle of wine and a Marvin Gaye album.

“It became a very long journey and it was not as easy as I thought it was going to be,” said Mayer, who was an attorney before launching Ovatemp. “When you’re a teenager you basically get told that if you even look boys in the eyes you’re going to get pregnant. Turns out it’s not that easy.”

To employ Ovatemp’s tech, a woman first answers a series of questions on her health and lifestyle, which assigns her a profile based on her responses. After a woman is profiled, she measures her temperature via a Bluetooth thermometer each morning, inputs information about her cervical and period fluid into an app and then awaits the status of her fertility. The company says the process can help women get pregnant up to six times faster.

Ovatemp’s app is now available on the Apple Store, and the company is currently accepting preorders of its thermometers.

“We’re making baby making fun and taking out the stress,” Mayer said. “We know we can improve their odds. … We’re making it as personal as possible. It’s data-driven, personalized advice rather than just tracking.”

In less than a month, Mayer will pitch Ovatemp’s solution on the Kauffman Center’s stage to hundreds of people and dozens of hungry investors during Techstar’s Demo Day. But unlike her peers in the three-month, mentor-led program, Mayer will be entering her third trimester.

“I’ll be seven-months pregnant,” she said. “I’ll get to flaunt my pregnancy on stage. I’m excited for what’s next.”