About the Brand
About
Xella Health is redefining women’s healthcare. Our mission: to uncover the root causes behind women’s health concerns — from fertility and perimenopause to endometriosis, PCOS, early cancer detection and beyond.
We’re pioneering first-of-its-kind, AI-powered multi-omic (RNA / DNA) testing that makes precision medicine and concierge care accessible to all women. Giving women the power to Know Your Code™ — this is healthcare that finally puts women first.
Founding Story
Women’s bodies are still too often treated as a mystery—because until the 1990s, women were rarely included in medical research. At Xella, solving that mystery isn’t a side project—it’s all we do. We combine the power of precision medicine and concierge care with advanced AI technology to give women clear answers, expert support, and actionable next steps—at a price that’s accessible, and from the comfort of your home.
Women feel they have no control over their health. The standard of care is too slow, too reactive, too one-size-fits-all, or non existent. We are here to change that.
- 20% of women struggle with infertility. We replace today’s trial-and-error infertility treatments with data-driven, actionable insights to identify root cause and accelerate time to pregnancy.
- 1 in every 3 women say they received “poor” or “very poor” care in perimenopause management. We deliver tailored interventions to improve long-term health and quality of life.
- 7 is the average number of years it takes a woman to receive a diagnosis for chronic gynecologic disorders, like endometriosis. We shorten the path to diagnosis to weeks.
- 106,000 new cases of gynecological cancers are found every year. Most cases are diagnosed at stage III/IV, when 5-year survival rates plummet. We assess, monitor, and help manage risk.
After losing her Mother to ovarian cancer when she was just 55-years-old, Kelly Lacob, Xella CEO & Co-Founder, joined forces with her former Mammoth Biosciences colleagues, Adriana Dantas, COO & Co-Founder and Jesus Ching, CTO & Co-Founder, to find a better way. Along their journey every single woman they met had a story to tell of a time they were dismissed, misdiagnosed, or told their health symptoms were “normal,” “just stress,” or something they must learn to live with. Xella was founded to change that paradigm.
Team & Experts
Tap a name to read the full bio.
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Kelly Lacob is a healthcare technologist, product designer, and systems thinker redefining how
we deliver care—making it more preventive, personalized, and accessible. Trained at Stanford
and Johns Hopkins in human biology, bioengineering, and business, Kelly has built her career
translating early-stage science into scalable products that change lives for traditionally
underserved patient populations.
Before co-founding Xella Health, Kelly led the product design and roadmap for the first
CRISPR-powered diagnostic platform at Mammoth Biosciences, and the development and
launch of the first FDA-cleared point-of-care and at-home PCR test at Visby Medical—a
diagnostic breakthrough that helped power early COVID-19 response efforts. Her portfolio of
past products spans more than a dozen healthcare innovations, including a remote-monitoring
platform for hypertension, diabetes, and preeclampsia, a surgical-supply bundling solution that
reduced postoperative infection, a community-based hearing-screening platform enabling
task-shifting to lower-level health workers, and a smart wound sensor and mobile app to prevent
pressure sores.
Now as Co-Founder and CEO of Xella Health, Kelly is applying her expertise in product design
and commercialization to bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and everyday clinical
care for women and their families.
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Adriana Dantas is a global biotech and medical-device leader with more than 20 years of
experience bringing breakthrough technologies from bench to bedside. A biochemist and
pharmacist turned business strategist, she has built a career at the intersection of science,
operations, and commercialization—bridging research innovation with real-world impact.
Before co-founding Xella Health, Adriana held senior executive roles at Roche, Becton
Dickinson, and Mammoth Biosciences, where she led cross-functional teams spanning R&D,
operations, and go-to-market execution. Her leadership has guided product portfolios that
achieved first- and second-in-market share positions globally, and she has lived and led across
five countries, cultivating a truly international perspective on healthcare delivery and innovation.
One of her proudest achievements was leading the women's health division at Roche, including
the acquisition and multinational rollout of the Ariosa line for non-invasive prenatal testing.
She holds an MBA from FGV (Brazil) and Cranfield School of Management (UK), and a
Doctorate in Pharmacy and Biochemistry from the University of São Paulo.
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Jesus Ching is a scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience and
more than 50 patents spanning molecular diagnostics, genomics, proteomics, and
CRISPR-based technologies. A true pioneer in next-generation diagnostics, Jesus has built a
career transforming scientific innovation into clinically impactful, commercially successful
products.
He has founded multiple diagnostics companies, three of which were acquired by industry
leaders Bio-Rad, Luminex/DiaSorin, and Cepheid/Danaher. His deep technical
expertise—combined with a relentless focus on first-principles thinking—has led to the creation
and launch of numerous products across point-of-care, lab-based, and multi-omic testing
platforms that redefine what’s possible in human diagnostics.
At Xella Health, Jesus leads the company’s scientific and technological vision, applying his
decades of experience in molecular systems design to power Xella’s AI- and multi-omic-based
precision health platform for women. Jesus holds a PhD in Chemistry from Baylor University and
a BS in Biology and Chemistry from Houston Baptist University.
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Taylor Hansen is an innovative brand and growth leader with 20 years of proven experience
building and scaling iconic global and emerging brands. She has led businesses across multiple
verticals within LVMH, VF Corporation, and Zadig&Voltaire, and most recently scaling her
award-winning consultancy, The Versed Group.
Blending creativity with commercial strategy, she drives growth that moves culture. At LVMH,
she concepted and led the build and commercial implementation of the world’s first AI-powered
skincare and color face finder—now a standard for leading wellness brands and responsible for
billions in conversion revenue.
A Sustainable MBA graduate and certified Integrative Health Practitioner, Taylor is deeply
committed to advancing women’s health innovation and Lyme disease awareness.
As Chief Marketing & Commercial Officer at Xella Health, Taylor joins the team in redefining the
future of women’s healthcare. A speaker, mentor, and Forbes contributor, she is known for
uniting brands and teams around purposes that are both socially responsible and commercially
powerful.
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A pioneer in data science and computational biology, Olga Sazonova translates moonshot R&D
into market-moving products in consumer genomics, cancer detection, and personalized
nutrition.
During her Biomedical Engineering PhD at Boston University, Olga taught herself to code,
earning a coveted NIH postdoctoral fellowship in computational science at Stanford. Balancing
motherhood with her biotech career, she joined 23andMe, first leading massive genomic studies
in neurological disease before moving to the product team to build the core machine learning
models for their consumer polygenic risk scores. At GRAIL, she spearheaded the R&D for novel
AI-driven early cancer detection.
As Director of Data Science at Nutrisense, Olga built the research program from scratch,
directing IRB-approved clinical studies and unleashing LLMs to validate product efficacy. At
Xella Health, she now leads a team of scientists and engineers developing the first AI-driven,
multi-omics powered 'magnifying lens' to illuminate female reproductive health and biology.
Press Coverage
HLTH
Jan 14, 2026
Xella Health Raises $3.7 Million Pre-Seed to Launch Women’s Precision Health Platform
Xella Health has closed more than $3.7 million in pre-seed financing as it prepares to launch a women’s precision health platform in spring 2026. The company has reported that it is approaching a 10,000-person waitlist ahead of launch, reflecting early interest in its approach to understanding female biology across multiple stages of life and health conditions. The platform has been designed to combine multi-omic diagnostics, longitudinal health data tracked over time, and clinician-led guidance to support care across fertility, hormonal health, chronic conditions, early cancer detection, and preventative health.
FEMTECH INSIDER
Jan 12, 2026
Xella Health Raises $3.7M Pre-Seed for Multi-Omic Women’s Health Testing
Xella Health, a San Francisco-based women’s precision health company, has raised $3.7 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Precursor Ventures with participation from Capital F, Ulu Ventures, and angel investors.
The company is developing multi-omic diagnostics that analyze menstrual fluid alongside peripheral blood to provide insights across fertility, hormonal health, perimenopause, and early cancer detection. Xella plans to launch in Spring 2026 and says it has nearly 10,000 people on its waitlist.
GENOMEWEB
Jan 12, 2026
Women's Health Firm Xella Health Closes $3.7M Pre-Seed Financing Round
Women's precision health and telemedicine company Xella Health said on Sunday that it closed a $3.7 million pre-seed funding round.
Precursor Ventures led the round, with participation from Capital F, Ulu Ventures, and others.
The San Francisco, California-based startup said that the funds will be used to help develop a multiomic women's precision health and diagnostics platform. In an email, a spokesperson for Xella said that the company's approach combines at-home sample collection that includes menstrual fluid and peripheral blood, longitudinal data analysis, and clinician-led care to support earlier, more personalized detection and monitoring across key women's health indications.
FITT INSIDER
Jan 12, 2026
Xella Health Closes $3.7 Million Pre-Seed to Build the Next Generation of Women’s Precision Health
Xella Health, a women’s precision health and telemedicine company focused on transforming how women understand their biology across every life stage, today announced the close of more than $3.7 million in pre-seed financing. The round was led by Precursor Ventures, with participation from Capital F, Ulu Ventures, and other funds. As well as, strategic angel investors across healthcare, diagnostics, and consumer technology.
Xella is defining a new category of women’s health—one that moves beyond symptom-based care and fragmented testing to deliver integrated biological insight, clarity, and foresight. The company combines advanced multi-omic diagnostics, longitudinal data, and personalized clinician-led guidance to help women understand what’s happening in their bodies today—and what’s likely ahead—across fertility, chronic conditions, hormonal health, early cancer detection, and preventative care.
Press Releases
Jan 10, 2026
Xella Health Closes $3.7 Million Pre-Seed to Build the Next Generation of Women’s Precision Health
Backed by Precursor Ventures, Capital F and Ulu Ventures, Xella is redefining how women understand their bodies—a vision resonating with users as the company approaches a 10,000-person waitlist ahead of its Spring 2026 launch.
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