There’s a Hot New Egg-Freezing Startup. It’s Weirder Than You Could Imagine
Cofertility is a startup offering free egg-freezing services to young women in exchange for donating half of their retrieved eggs to intended parents. The company's 'egg-sharing' model aims to lower the financial barrier to fertility preservation while commercializing a practice that was previously niche.
Why it matters
This model raises ethical and social questions regarding the commodification of human biological material and the financial pressures driving young women toward fertility preservation.
Tu goes by Sue, a name she likes because it reminds her of the 2024 body horror film The Substance, whose protagonist tortures herself in pursuit of youth and beauty. To prequalify for free egg freezing, all Sue had to do was take a two-minute quiz. “Not everyone can pass this exam,” she remembers thinking. “Oh, it seems like a competition.”
Sue passed, as have thousands of young women allured by the promise of a company called Cofertility. “The best time to freeze your eggs is when you can least afford it,” goes the company’s mantra, uttered on repeat by its public face and CEO, onetime Uber employee Lauren Makler. Thus was born Cofertility’s mission: to help women like Sue, who had just received her master’s degree in classical music and was preparing to embark on a second bachelor’s, preserve their future fertility for zero dollars.
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