Ag tech startup Verility Inc. validates AI-based fertility analytics tech platform for sow insemination

The Fertile-Eyez^TM platform tells users which animals to inseminate and when

INDIANAPOLIS — A 400-sow study conducted in 2024 has validated that sow insemination protocols using Verility Inc.’s fertility analysis technology called Fertile-Eye^TM delivered comparable pregnancy and embryo rates to traditional breeding protocols while requiring fewer semen doses, heat tests and boar exposure days, which led to a reduction in overall breeding system labor.

Verility CEO Liane Hart said the bottom line of using the patented Fertile-Eyez technology was a 1.6 return on investment for swine breeders and producers. She earned her bachelor’s degree in animal sciences and her master’s degree in breeding and genetics from Purdue University’s College of Agriculture.

“Both protocols delivered comparable performance, but the Verility protocol ultimately required only an average of 1.15 inseminations per sow compared to two per the standard breeding protocol,” she said. “So a single insemination using Fertile-Eyez as part of the protocol had a comparable rate to traditional double insemination.”

Benefits of Fertile-Eyez on sow insemination

Hart said the study revealed the following benefits of using Fertile-Eyez in sow insemination protocols compared to traditional methods:

• A 40% reduction in semen doses.
• A 45% reduction in boar heat tests.
• A 20% reduction in boar exposure days.
• A 38% pregnancy rate in nonstanding heat sows, which typically aren’t inseminated. “They are seen as nonproductive females, which can lead to unnecessary culling,” Hart said.
• A 24% reduction in overall system labor.
• A reduction in nonproductive sow days.
• A 91% overall conception rate. “This may prove to be an additional benefit in settings where, today, pregnancy rates are below desired levels,” Hart said.

“These results provide an opportunity to use high-indexing boar semen to accelerate genetic improvement in each herd,” Hart said. “Because we used fewer semen doses, we can now use the higher-indexing boars, which delivers a more productive and highly improved genetic-quality animal.”

AcuFast partnered with Verility by providing animals and study oversight.

“We have never seen results this positive with other ovulation interventions,” said Amanda Minton, AcuFast’s manager of swine reproductive solutions. “An additional benefit is that Fertile-Eyez is a diagnostic that works with the biology of the animal and not a hormone that is used to force ovulation.”

Additional investments, next steps and issued patents

As a result of the study, Verility has received its final tranche of a $4 million total funding round from Nashville, Tennessee-based venture capital firm Mountain Group Partners.

“We are very excited about the progress and potential of Verility to transform production animal fertility through its Fertile-Eyez diagnostic and analytics platform,” said Rob Readnour, managing director at Mountain Group Partners. “We believe that Fertile-Eyez will play an important role in reducing labor and increasing production efficiency while accelerating genetic progress going forward.”

Hart will share results of the study with breeders and producers to continue to grow Verility.

“From this point onward, we are looking to conduct customer trials throughout 2025 and into 2026, picking up potential letters of intent and purchase orders,” she said. “And we’re also looking to close out a Series A-2 round of funding in July for initial commercialization efforts.”

Verility holds exclusive licensing rights to a suite of intellectual property developed by leading investigators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, where it was originally created and validated in humans.

“Now the technology has been validated across multiple species and applications,” Hart said. “These AI-driven technologies enable ovulation detection and semen analysis, leveraging smartphone-enabled solutions to deliver unprecedented accuracy and accessibility. Our portfolio includes issued patents across the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia.

“With applications in both human and animal health, our technology stands at the forefront of reproductive diagnostics, empowering users with next-generation solutions that drive scientific advancement and global accessibility.”

Verility is a Purdue Strategic Ventures portfolio company.

The Holy Grail

Hart said Verility had begun marketing Fertile-Eyez focusing on analyzing semen quality, conducting a study that led to positive results and a peer-reviewed publication, but the company has pivoted to focus on ovulation.

“The sow ovulation market — ovulation for all species — is the Holy Grail of animal breeding,” she said. “It’s a difficult subject to tackle because it’s a complex biological process that can have much variability. Not only can it be influenced by external factors, but it can also have detection challenges since not all ways to track ovulation are accessible, affordable or accurate, and some can be downright invasive.

“The traditional way to determine which animals to inseminate and when has been done the same way for decades, whereas our work has validated the use of pioneering technology and data to make the process simpler, faster, and more efficient and profitable for breeders and producers.”

About Verility

Verility Inc. is a central Indiana startup that is focused on disrupting and optimizing breeding and fertility in animal health by leveraging image recognition and proprietary algorithms in the global animal health breeding markets. This new fertility platform is considered a breakthrough product category, creating a much-needed niche, allowing industry players access to mobile product attributes never before seen at such an affordable rate. Verility is located in Maxwell, Indiana. More information about the company is available at online.

About Mountain Group Partners

Mountain Group Partners (“MGP”) is an investor dedicated to investing in and actively guiding transformational businesses in the life sciences, animal health and technology sectors. Founded in 2002, MGP has invested in more than 55 companies in these sectors. MGP invests in seed- and early-stage companies. Within life sciences, the firm focuses on MedTech, diagnostics and opportunistic drug development. MGP places a premium on those innovations that have existing intellectual property or a novel scientific foundation for building intellectual property. Animal health investments focus on disruptive technologies that have a meaningful impact on global animal health and animal agriculture. Technology investments focus on business and health care technology, targeting those ideas with quantifiable development risk and a rapid path to market. For more information, visit www.mtngp.com.

About Purdue Strategic Ventures

Purdue Strategic Ventures provides strategic support, early-stage investment and community activation for Purdue-connected, venture-scale startups with strong growth potential across agriculture, deep tech, digital tech, mobility and life sciences. Within the Purdue Research Foundation, Strategic Ventures unlocks opportunities for lasting startup growth, transforming potential into performance for portfolio companies.

Strategic Ventures is the nexus between entrepreneurial talent and strategic capital, driving Boilermaker innovation and investment success. For more information, visit ventures.prf.org.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 107,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 58,000 at our main campus in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 13 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its comprehensive urban expansion, the Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue Computes and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.