Medtech startup Oli backs up $6.5m raise with $2m federal grant to build Sydney manufacturing base

Sydney-based maternal health technology company Oli has secured $2 million in non-dilutive funding from the Australian Government's Industry Growth Program (IGP) to establish manufacturing capabilities in Sydney, expected to commence later this year.

The federal grant follows a $6.5 million Series A3 capital raise completed in May this year, backed by Scale Investors, Clare Ventures and the University of Sydney, and a separate $1.3 million grant from the NSW Government's Medical Devices Fund awarded a month earlier in April

Oli, formerly known as Baymatob, has now attracted more than $11.5 million in non-dilutive funding alongside $13 million in private capital raised to date.

The company is developing a wearable monitoring device designed to predict birth complications including postpartum haemorrhage, shifting maternal-foetal care from reactive treatment to early intervention.

The IGP funding will support the transition from clinical development to local manufacturing as Oli targets a commercial launch by the end of 2027.

Tara Croft, the CEO of Oli, says the grants represent a key endorsement of both the technology and the opportunity to build a globally significant maternal and foetal health company from Australia.

"Maternal and foetal monitoring has remained largely unchanged for decades, despite maternal health complications continuing to rise globally," says Croft.

"Today, too many serious complications are only recognised once they're already unfolding, resulting in preventable emergencies, long-term health complications and, in some cases, death for mothers and babies.

"We're building technology that helps clinicians see what's coming and act earlier, shifting maternal and fetal healthcare from a reactive process to a predictive one.”

Croft describes the opportunity as "significant", with Oli projected to benefit more than nine million patients across Australia and the US alone.

"Australia has produced world-leading healthcare companies, and it's incredibly encouraging to see support for innovation in an area where earlier visibility and intervention can have a profound impact on women, babies and families,” she says.

Founded in 2018 by mechatronic engineer Dr Sarah McDonald following the traumatic birth of her second child, Oli was created to address a critical gap in maternal and foetal care.

Oli has positioned itself at the intersection of wearable hardware and predictive analytics for obstetric care, an area that has historically relied on intermittent monitoring during labour rather than continuous data collection throughout pregnancy and birth.

Despite advances across healthcare, the company says maternal and foetal monitoring has remained largely unchanged for over 60 years.

Clinicians still rely on the same three rudimentary biomarkers, using retrospective information, with risk assessed on admission and often not updated until something has already gone wrong.

At its core, Oli is a wireless, wearable device that captures millions of physiological data points across 10 biosensors - maternal and foetal, simultaneously - without interrupting movement, position, or the natural progression of labour.

This data is processed through its patented Predictive Maternal-Fetal Signal technology, translating raw inputs into live clinical signals that update as labour progresses, identifying early patterns that precede serious complications.

The company says every birth the Oli technology attends makes the Maternal Intelligence Platform more comprehensive as it aggregates data and signals across births, refining predictive accuracy further over time. 

Oli aims to have the ability to analyse up to 15conditions and complications across pregnancy and birth, including postpartum haemorrhage (PPH), foetal distress, stillbirth risk and labour progression. 

"Birth is not a crisis to be managed but it carries risks that deserve to be seen," says Croft.

"All of them, in real-time. That's what Oli’s predictive technology is achieving - no more blind spots in maternal and foetal care."

Oli is currently running a 1,000-patient pivotal clinical trial across seven sites, with more than 850 mothers enrolled.

Early clinical simulations completed in 2023 indicated the technology could provide postpartum haemorrhage warnings up to nine hours before birth, with a potential 58 per cent improvement in clinical response times and up to 50 per cent reduction in severe interventions, according to the company.

The $2 million IGP grant adds to a growing pool of government backing for the company.

The NSW Medical Devices Fund contribution was part of a broader $7.4 million round distributed across four recipients announced by the NSW Government in April this year.