Maternal health deserves innovation, and this month, Santa Cruz-based Stork Labs Medical got a powerful reminder of how many people agree.

Stork Labs founders holding $25,000 check.

The company, founded by UC Santa Cruz Ph.D. graduates Maryam Tebyani and Leya Breanna "Bre" Baltaxe-Admony, is developing a flexible, sensor-guided device designed to make assisted vaginal deliveries safer and more predictable for obstetricians, birthing people, and babies alike.

‍ A Remarkable Quarter

‍ Over the past three months, Stork Labs took part in three separate startup accelerators and by coincidence, all three programs wrapped up within the same week, and Stork Labs walked away with an award from each one:

‍UC Launch Demo Day at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business: $25,000
SEGA Accelerate California at Sacramento's Aggie Square: $50,000
UC Davis Big Bang!: $10,000

‍In total, the team secured $85,000 in non-dilutive funding in just seven days: capital that comes with no equity strings attached, letting the founders keep full ownership as they continue developing their medical device.

‍Building on Momentum

‍The three wins followed closely on the heels of a first-place finish at LAUNCH-A-THON, where student volunteers Matt Gross, Chinmay Patil, and Alex Wu helped power the team to victory.

Each accelerator pushed Stork Labs to refine a different piece of the puzzle: sharpening the business plan, tightening the pitch, and stress-testing their thinking against new audiences of judges, mentors, and fellow founders. Beyond the funding, the team has also developed lasting relationships: new mentors, and a community of founders they're looking forward to staying connected with as everyone's companies grow.

Born in Santa Cruz

Stork Labs' story started in 2017, when co-founder Maryam Tebyani attended a medical device workshop at IEEE IROS, one of the world's largest robotics conferences. Inspired by advances in soft robotics, and thinking about her own experience as a woman in engineering, she saw an opportunity to bring those same technologies to women's health, particularly childbirth. The company's Santa Cruz roots have shown throughout, including an early presentation at Santa Cruz Works' New Tech, where local founders and investors got one of their first looks at the technology.

Since then, the team has developed a novel fabrication process for cable-driven soft robots, developed a business model through 200+ customer discovery interviews with physicians, mothers, and midwives, and secured earlier non-dilutive support through the NSF I-Corps program and the UCSF–Stanford Pediatric Device Consortium.

With three more accelerators, and $85K, now behind them, Stork Labs is heading into its next phase of prototyping with fresh capital, sharper positioning, and an expanding network of supporters behind their mission to make childbirth safer.

Learn more about Stork Labs at https://storklabsmedical.github.io/

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