A Bay Area telemedicine company that provides online access to abortion pills announced a $1 million seed round Thursday led by Elevate Capital.
Choix (pronounced “choice”), which was founded in 2020, has benefited from a decision by the FDA in 2021 to permanently allow abortion pills to be prescribed online due to the pandemic. It remains one of only a handful telehealth companies that space, including Hey Jane, Abortion on Demand and Aid Access.
With Roe v. Wade under threat of being overturned, companies like Choix are seeking to fill the gaps in abortion care for what could end up being a complicated patchwork of state laws governing the procedure.
“The overturn of Roe and the nature of the restrictive laws that are already in place are designed to make people afraid to provide abortion care and to seek care, and we obviously consider these laws to be overreaching,” said Choix co-founder and CEO Cindy Adam. “Our goal is to work towards safe and equitable access for everyone in the states we serve, and as we grow, this will continue to be an uphill battle if Roe is overturned.”
The company currently only operates in California, Colorado and Illinois but plans to expand coverage area with the new funding. Telemedicine companies can offer services in states where they have a license and must have physicians and nurse practitioners licensed in that state to provide care.
Patients do not need to be a resident of a given state but need to be physically located in the state at the time they receive services and receive the shipped medication.
If Roe is overturned, fear exists that some state legislatures could enact laws to try to prevent women from leaving the state to get abortion services, or even go after companies that facilitate abortions to residents of states where abortion is illegal.
“We can only focus on being clear and consistent about how we provide care and following local state laws where we provide care,” Adam said. “It’s quite a situation to be in to be a business owner in a certain state and to have to worry about the laws of another state — there's not really much precedent for that.”
Despite federal regulation allowing abortion pills to be prescribed via telemedicine, 21 states explicitly ban the practice.
Adam expects demand for abortion services to increase dramatically in states where it remains legal, especially in states like Illinois that borders states with "trigger laws" — which are laws that will go into effect to ban abortion immediately following the overturning of Roe.
Choix offers two medications, mifepristone and misoprostol, which can terminate a pregnancy up to 10 weeks after conception. It also offers a range of other reproductive health services like STD medication and birth control pills, although Adam says the majority of their prescriptions are for abortion pills.
The company currently has less than 12 employees and has served around 3,500 patients and is headquartered in San Rafael.
