Good morning, Broadsheet readers! The BAFTAs continue a longtime trend, ABC News does some exec reshuffling, and a maternity care clinic raises $28 million. Have a thoughtful Tuesday.
– Maternity model. Oula cofounder and CEO Adrienne Nickerson raised her first seed round for her brick-and-mortar health startup in the early months of the pandemic. She raised her Series A round in 2021 during a booming market for venture-backed startups. So when she and her cofounder Elaine Purcell set out to pursue a Series B round, the ease of raising capital was somewhere in between those two experiences.
That middle ground resulted in a $28 million Series B round for Oula, Fortune is the first to report. The round was co-led by Revolution Ventures and Maverick Ventures with participation from Google Ventures. Other Oula investors include Female Founders Fund, which returned for this round, and Chelsea Clinton’s firm Metrodora Ventures.
Oula is a maternity care clinic with a focus on midwifery alongside obstetric care. The New York-based startup with 70 employees has two locations in the city with a third set to open this summer, all in partnership with Mount Sinai West, a hospital. So far, the startup’s care teams have helped birth 1,500 babies. The founders plan to use their $28 million in new funding to open locations outside of New York. New locations will be nearby in the tri-state area—an advantage for brand recognition and existing patients who have moved to the suburbs since giving birth to their first child, Nickerson says.
In the five years since Oula’s founders first started envisioning their startup, their target market has become even more open to holistic maternity care. When first starting the business, they focused on proving that a combination of midwifery and obstetric care could reduce C-sections, pre-term births, NICU utilization, and low birth weight babies. Now, they say they’ve shown that to potential patients and investors and are focused on scaling the business.
“As we’re in the next phase, it’s much more—how do we scale?” Nickerson says.
Oula patients can receive a mix of in-person and virtual care depending on their needs throughout pregnancy; they are cared for during non-surgical births by Oula’s midwifery team with obstetric care available if needed. The clinic appeals to future parents who prefer to avoid medical intervention during birth, but appreciate the availability of emergency medical care. Oula accepts several major insurance plans.
Nickerson is pregnant with her second child and is due in early March; the birth will be her second through Oula.
“We’re capturing a much broader audience than people who were already picking midwives five years ago,” she says.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Paramount problems. Paramount Chairmen Shari Redstone spent billions trying to build the network’s streaming platform when she inherited the media network amid a steep drop in demand for network TV and moviegoing. The streaming service has failed to compete in the four years since, and the company reported $1 billion in losses in 2023, forcing Redstone to shop around her controlling stake for a quickly diminishing value. Bloomberg
- Pay day. Banco Santander executive chairman Ana Botín, No. 19 on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list, earned $13.15 million in compensation last year, a 4.3% increase, as the bank notched record profits. Botín has expanded the bank’s geographic footprint to make up for lower interest rates in some of its key markets. Bloomberg
- New boss. After a Disney restructuring, ABC News president Kim Godwin now reports to Debra OConnell rather than Disney entertainment cochair Dana Walden. The move has put a spotlight on Godwin’s tenure in the job, which has been historic (as the first Black woman to run the network), but rocky. Wall Street Journal
- Same old story. This weekend's BAFTAs highlighted how the British film and television awards have failed to honor Black women throughout the ceremony's 76-year history. Fantasia Barrino and Vivian Oparah were nominated this year for The Color Purple and Rye Lane, but the award went to Emma Stone for Poor Things. Variety
- Show of respect. Baylor University retired Brittney Griner's basketball jersey in a show of respect for the athlete who was detained in Russia for 10 months. Griner has a complicated relationship with her alma mater, where she was expected to stay quiet about her queer identity. The 19th
ON MY RADAR
The loneliness of Jodie Foster The Atlantic
Jenny Slate doesn't want to gross you out The New Yorker
'True beauty starts at 40': Older women ruled New York Fashion Week Wall Street Journal
PARTING WORDS
“A woman doesn’t need any excuse for her physical appearance and owes no explanation.”
—Comedian Amy Schumer, responding to questions about her appearance
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