Claire Tomkins On Raising Over $500 Million To Build A Platform To Help Couples Navigate Fertility Treatments Through Financial Support And Concierge Services

Claire Tomkins, founder and CEO of Future Family, is no stranger to reinvention. In an inspiring conversation on the Dealmakers Podcast, Claire shares the defining moments that shaped her from solving problems in frozen barns to raising over $500M in capital.

Future Family has secured funding from top-tier investors like Munich Re Ventures, Triventures, MS&AD Ventures, ORIX, Aspect Ventures, and Mindset Ventures.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Claire Tomkins transitioned from nonprofit impact work to founding Future Family, driven by a personal IVF journey and a vision to scale access to fertility care.
• Future Family created a new asset class by offering consumer financing for fertility treatments, now the fourth-largest life expense in the U.S.
• Claire raised over $500 million across debt and equity, including a pioneering $100M facility while still in the seed stage.
• The company launched a first-of-its-kind IVF insurance product—“Baby or Your Money Back”—to de-risk family planning for patients.
• Fundraising during the pandemic required over 100 Zoom pitches, highlighting the resilience needed to navigate startup survival.
• Claire emphasizes that effective leadership requires embracing conflict and fostering authentic team communication, not just scaling the product.
• Her long-term vision is to normalize fertility financing as a standard life investment, just like buying a home or car.

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About Claire Tomkins:

Claire Tomkins is the Founder and CEO of Future Family, a startup that helps women and couples navigate their fertility journeys. Previously, she was the Director of Product Marketing at SolarCity (now TSLA), where she helped build one of the largest consumer finance businesses in the industry.

She holds a PhD from Stanford University and has been recognized as a National Science Foundation Fellow and a Kauffman Fellow. Based on her personal journey, Claire is passionate about women’s health and fertility.

Connect with Claire Tomkins:

• LinkedIn
• Crunchbase
• Zoominfo
• RocketReach

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Alrighty, hello everyone and welcome to the DealMaker Show. Today we have a really amazing founder joining us. We’re going to be talking about the building, the scaling, the financing—whether you’re doing it in equity or in debt.

Alejandro Cremades: We’re going to be talking about both. And then we’re going to be talking about founder transformation, learning how to focus. We’re also going to be discussing insurance products in fertility.

Alejandro Cremades: And also how to think about market shifts, how to adapt to them as a founder, and all of the above. So brace yourself for a very inspiring conversation today.

Alejandro Cremades: Without further ado, let’s welcome our guest today, Claire Tomkins. Welcome to the show.

Claire Tomkins: Alejandro, thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here today.

Alejandro Cremades: So, originally born in Oxford, England, but you moved to the U.S. quite early at six years old. Give us a walk down memory lane—how was life growing up for you?

Claire Tomkins: I know—and no accent, although every once in a while someone thinks maybe I’m Canadian, which, you know, who doesn’t want to be Canadian? So it’s fine.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s right.

Claire Tomkins: But yes, I moved here when I was young, six or seven years old, and grew up in the U.S. I grew up in the Midwest, between two states—Wisconsin and Illinois—for all of my childhood.

Claire Tomkins: Something that still amazes my children is that I grew up in small communities and on a small farm. My parents were kind of eclectic collectors of animals. So we had Angora goats, llamas—I raised horses and trained horses.

Claire Tomkins: We had an assortment of different house pets, including bunnies. It was really quite the menagerie. I do think those early years, growing up on a farm and getting up in those freezing Midwest winters at five or six in the morning to do chores and look after the animals, instilled a healthy work ethic from a young age.

Alejandro Cremades: What about problem-solving? Where does that come from? Obviously, you studied engineering, which kind of shocked everyone in your family. So how did problem-solving come knocking?

Claire Tomkins: Yeah, I mean, there was problem-solving just in the day-to-day—when you have that many animals, one or more is always escaping. But I think the real problem-solving—everyone in my family was a bit surprised when I chose engineering as a major because I had a lot of passion for literature and science and other areas growing up.

Claire Tomkins: I think for me, that was an identity piece at 18. I really wanted to solve problems in the world. I knew I was a builder.

Claire Tomkins: I didn’t know I was a quote-unquote entrepreneur until much later in life. That’s probably because this generation is so much more familiar with the entrepreneurial pathway and journey. I don’t think I thought of that as a career.

Claire Tomkins: I just knew I wanted to build things, and that led me to study engineering. I went to undergrad at the University of Arizona—go Wildcats!—and was later lucky enough to move to the Bay Area to attend Stanford University.

Alejandro Cremades: You did your PhD there, which was quite pivotal. What’s interesting is that at Stanford, everyone is building their own things. Entrepreneurship is big there.

Alejandro Cremades: For you, you went into nonprofits, which is very different from the world you’re in now. So tell us how the whole nonprofit thing came about, because you also worked with very big people, like Richard Branson and others, right?

Claire Tomkins: That’s right. So, a couple of things around that. I sometimes jokingly say I’m very much the daughter of my father and the daughter of my mother—my dad was kind of, not exactly, but sort of a hardcore capitalist who ran a big private equity–backed firm, and my mom was a social activist.

Claire Tomkins: I feel like I’m a mix between the two. I enjoy building and being an entrepreneur, but I care a lot about impact. That’s what came out in that early chapter working in nonprofits.

Claire Tomkins: I definitely saw that as a way to have impact in the world. It was an exciting time—this was just the forefront of scaling up renewable energy, 15+ years ago.

Claire Tomkins: It was the beginning of saying, “Okay, we’re going to start to scale.” I had an amazing opportunity, as you said, to work as part of Virgin Unite Carbon War Room with Richard Branson, and also with AEE with Matt James, Tom Steyer, Anne O’Leary, Kate Gordon—great folks in San Francisco.

Claire Tomkins: But I ultimately switched over to the private sector and entrepreneurship because I also saw that that’s a way to scale. I think the ultimate impact we have is at scale.

Claire Tomkins: So while nonprofits play a huge role in thought leadership and ideas, if you want the biggest impact, you have to achieve it at scale.

Alejandro Cremades: And why join another company, like you did with SolarCity, versus starting your own? Obviously now you’re doing your own, but why SolarCity?

Claire Tomkins: I was very lucky to have great mentors while living in Silicon Valley. The advice I got—which I’m so glad I took—was: go into a hyper-growth company. At that time, I didn’t have the idea fully formed.

Claire Tomkins: Probably the most important thing about being an entrepreneur is that you better love that idea, because you are going to live and breathe it for many years. At that precise moment, I didn’t yet know what my company would be.

Claire Tomkins: The mentorship I received was: go into a hyper-growth company. It’s one of the unique things about Silicon Valley—maybe also New York or Tel Aviv—you can go into hyper-growth.

Claire Tomkins: I had a big network in renewable energy and was passionate about the space, so joining SolarCity made a lot of sense. It was a very formative four years—watching Lyndon, Pete, Toby, and others scale the company, going through the IPO, and working alongside them.

Claire Tomkins: Then I had an idea for a company. I thought it was a great idea.

Claire Tomkins: I was going to start a DG company and ended up tearing up that business plan and starting Future Family. That was the beginning of this chapter.

Alejandro Cremades: That happened over dinner. You were pregnant with your daughter Natalie, and during dinner with your husband, the original business plan got scrapped, and a new idea—and your current company—was born. What happened at that dinner?

Claire Tomkins: It was a very fateful dinner. I remember it well. We were at a small restaurant, having dinner and a glass of wine. I said, “Isn’t it crazy that we just went through this fertility journey that’s changing our whole lives?”

Claire Tomkins: For me, it was a really difficult journey. Natalie is now 10, and back then people didn’t talk about this so much. It wasn’t all over the media with celebrities—thankfully that has changed.

Claire Tomkins: But at that time, it was hush-hush. I had been on this roller coaster for several years trying to get pregnant with IVF. I finally was pregnant, and it was amazing.

Claire Tomkins: I said, “How crazy is it that we went through this journey and there are no good financial solutions—very little innovation. Someone should really do something about this.” I think that’s what I said—“someone should do something about this.”

Claire Tomkins: And one thing led to another, and by the end of the dinner, it was like, “I should do something about this.”

Alejandro Cremades: So what happened next?

Claire Tomkins: The idea for Future Family was, as you said, born—or conceived—that night, shall we say. That sent me on the path of starting the early seed stage journey.

Claire Tomkins: It was just like everything you’ve ever seen in a Silicon Valley sitcom—me and a couple of friends, team members, literally in my home.

Claire Tomkins: We had a big room that wasn’t yet occupied by the twins, so we set up camp and started to build the beginning of Future Family.

Alejandro Cremades: For the people listening—what ended up being the business model of Future Family?

Alejandro Cremades: How do you guys make money?

Claire Tomkins: We are a consumer finance platform. Having a long background in consumer finance—even though I was in solar—believe it or not, there are a lot of similarities in building a new asset class.

Claire Tomkins: When you create a new asset class, it’s all about proving performance. Why do people want to invest in your assets? Because they perform well. I understood that well from SolarCity.

Claire Tomkins: The thesis was—we need to finance American families. It’s now the fourth largest expense in America: mortgage, auto, education, and now family building and fertility.

Claire Tomkins: So the business model and the idea were born from that: let’s build an asset class here. Let’s finance American families and be better at it than anyone else. That led to a lot of product iteration.

Claire Tomkins: Uniquely in healthcare, we manage multiple vendor payments. When you get a car loan, you pay one dealership. In healthcare, you have to pay the clinic, the pharmacy, and other providers.

Claire Tomkins: We have a seamless payments platform, and we really are able to finance American families.

Alejandro Cremades: What was that moment like, Claire, when you thought, “I think we may be onto something here”?

Claire Tomkins: One of the pivotal moments—and a recognition of one of my deepest partnerships—was getting to meet the team at Adalia Capital, including my longtime partner James Intermont. They understood the asset class immediately.

Claire Tomkins: We explained that this would be a new asset class, and what we wanted to build. We did a pioneering thing early on—we set up a $100 million facility while still a seed-stage company, just before our Series A.

Claire Tomkins: That was my “aha” moment—people understood this asset.

Alejandro Cremades: So all in all, in total, how much have you raised in debt and equity?

Claire Tomkins: On the debt side, we just closed another $400 million fund. We announced it in the Wall Street Journal in April. That brings total capital to well above $500 million. We’ve deployed $200 million and have been selling assets on top of that—so a combination of raising and selling on the debt side.

Claire Tomkins: We’ve also raised over $80 million in venture capital.

Alejandro Cremades: What’s been the difference between raising debt versus raising equity for a company like this?

Claire Tomkins: So different. So different. And as a founder, beware—if you decide to do anything related to financing, you’ll always be raising capital. There’s never a time when you’re not.

Claire Tomkins: On the debt side, we raise capital to finance families. In structured finance, the focus is purely on the asset itself. Of course, they care about the company having a good balance sheet and strong financials, but the main focus is financing those assets—these consumer loans.

Claire Tomkins: The average loan is $25,000. This is the fourth-largest asset class. These are not small loans. So raising that capital is very asset-focused. We do standard data tapes, loan performance analysis, and so forth.

Claire Tomkins: On the equity side, especially in the early days, there was skepticism about fertility being a big TAM.

Claire Tomkins: Like fertility, I don’t know. I know a few people have done it. I think now everyone has woken up, and certainly private equity is very active to the idea that, no, this is mainstream. This is one in five Americans. This might end up being one in three Americans. This might absolutely be your kids. And if you’re me,

Claire Tomkins: You’ve already told your 10-year-old daughter that she’s going to freeze her eggs at 18. And she already knows that. So I think the TAM in this space is better understood, and that’s helped with the equity fundraising, if that makes sense.

Alejandro Cremades: And on the equity fundraising—over the $80 million plus that you guys raised—what was that journey like?

Claire Tomkins: Yeah, we’ve been around eight years now, so I’ve been through a couple of market cycles, and it’s just drastically different. Timing is everything in life, and I would say, in the good days of the market—certainly 2021 and 2022—those were good years. So in the good years, it’s easy to raise capital if you have momentum in your business.

Claire Tomkins: I’d say very recently, obviously there’s been a lot of fallout for later-stage companies. And we all know what’s happened in venture capital—last year, 70% less venture capital was raised. That means LPs are on the sidelines, and that impacts entrepreneurs, because then fund managers are concerned about pricing, multiples, returns. So it’s been a much harder fundraising environment in the last 18 months.

Claire Tomkins: I also went through a really tough cycle early in building Future Family during the pandemic, where the pandemic had shut down our business. And I think I made—Alejandro, I kid you not—over a hundred Zoom calls to raise about $10 million to get through the pandemic.

Claire Tomkins: I just remember sitting in my small home office at the time, just making call after call, because we were distributing our product through clinics, and fertility clinics were closed down for almost four to five months.

Claire Tomkins: During that time, Future Family had no net new revenue. So it was kind of… everybody knew the business would come back, but investors usually don’t like to invest ahead of a business coming back.

Claire Tomkins: They usually want to invest once the business is back. So that was a really tough chapter for us—those hundred-plus Zoom calls in 2020 and 2021.

Alejandro Cremades: So 100 plus—and in the hundreds, obviously, if we aggregate throughout the whole journey over these years—what would you say is probably the biggest misconception around fundraising that really stood out once you encountered it?

Claire Tomkins: Yeah, I think the biggest—well, the biggest misconception or the most important thing psychologically for a founder—is you have to try and view it as a two-way street. I really do say it’s analogous to dating.

Claire Tomkins: And in dating, it should be a fit on both sides—not something that ends up being forced. And yes, unfortunately, for the most part, you have to go on a lot of dates. But I always kind of jokingly say, if you don’t have the right psychology around it, it feels like rejection.

Claire Tomkins: Because it’s like—you go on a date, and the first conversation is very friendly. They’re like, “Let’s have a second date. You’re amazing.” And then by the third date, they’re running for the door. And time and again, that’s what it’s like. But I try to frame it as:

Claire Tomkins: You’re really trying to find someone who aligns with you—on the opportunity, the business model, how you want to execute. So it’s healthier to go into it with the mindset of, not so much, “I’m just trying to get everyone I talk to to offer me money,” but instead, “I’m going to find the right fit, and I want to take meetings and evaluate the investor as they’re evaluating me.”

Alejandro Cremades: And now, as we’re talking about people too—why do you say that the focus ultimately on people and communication is so important to you?

Claire Tomkins: Yeah, I think that’s one of the things that’s changed the most for me, Alejandro. I give a lot of credit here to this amazing, special program run by the Leaders in Technology group, co-founded by Carol Robin, who used to run Interpersonal Dynamics at Stanford University.

Claire Tomkins: And as we’ve already disclosed, I’m an engineer by training. I love people, I’ve got relatively high EQ, but that experience really changed my life. And it was what Carol said: “The soft stuff is harder than the hard stuff.”

Claire Tomkins: Meaning—it’s really the people dynamics and the communication that in many ways can be harder for us. We might be technically proficient, good at building Excel models, understanding business mechanics. But when you do a startup, the G-forces are real.

Claire Tomkins: Your ability to have real conversations—not just, “Oh, I think we should pivot in this direction or explore this market”—but real conversations: “I feel scared. I’m worried. You’re not delivering. Are we in alignment?”

Claire Tomkins: Real conversations, I think, can make or break getting through a tough time. And it was certainly that experience of going through LIT and realizing—I was good at being positive. I was bad at conflict.

Claire Tomkins: I didn’t know how to repair relationships after a fight. There were a lot of things that—even as a founder and CEO—I really needed in my toolkit in order to get further along.

Alejandro Cremades: So when you’re on the other side of the mountain—and you don’t always get that opportunity as a founder—it’s not a straight line. There are ups and downs.

Alejandro Cremades: When you’re in the downs, especially when it comes to people, what has been your biggest lesson about really embracing those soft kinds of events—the hardest ones?

Claire Tomkins: Yeah, for sure the biggest lesson has been around conflict. I think on some level, maybe we’re all a little afraid of conflict.

Claire Tomkins: And yet, it’s been the most essential. It’s confronting—whether it’s behavior, or a fundamental disagreement. There may be a “disagree or commit” moment.

Claire Tomkins: I think avoiding conflict is not uncommon. It was certainly part of my story. I could see the team wasn’t motivated, and I wanted them to follow me up this mountain. I’d be like, “We’re going up this mountain.”

Claire Tomkins: But we weren’t having real conflict. I needed to open up and say, “Okay, I can read the body language. I sense what’s going on. You guys don’t want to do this. You don’t believe in this. Why not?”

Claire Tomkins: Okay, we have conflict. And to make it okay to have conflict with the CEO—that’s an art. What if people don’t want to have conflict with you because they fear getting fired?

Claire Tomkins: I had one team member who was amazing. He did conflict really well with me. He used to tell the team, “Look, we fight all the time and she hasn’t fired me. It’s been several years.”

Claire Tomkins: So I was making it okay to have conflict. You need to be able to do that in a healthy way, and empower your team to do that with you.

Alejandro Cremades: I love that. Now, tell us about insurance products in fertility. I know you guys have quite a bit going on around that.

Claire Tomkins: My favorite topic. I’m glad we finally got there. So, this is a really crazy story.

Claire Tomkins: We have an amazing partnership with the whole team at Munich Re Ventures. They’re just amazing—Jacqueline Lesage, who founded the firm; Osh Kaplan, who sits on my board; Ian Sanders, our head of portfolio development.

Claire Tomkins: That whole team—Veronica, Ben, all the great people. We formed a partnership back in 2022, believing we could build an insurance product for IVF.

Claire Tomkins: And apart from the Munich Re team, I think everybody else thought we were crazy. Insurance is a very old industry—think about Lloyd’s of London. And yes, you can write a policy for almost anything, but when they heard IVF and fertility, there were a lot of raised eyebrows.

Claire Tomkins: We spent 18, almost 24 months, building this product. We brought in the best global actuarial firm and BMS Re, and built from the ground up a completely de novo financial product—now nationwide IVF insurance for fertility.

Claire Tomkins: We call it “Baby or Your Money Back.” I kid you not—you can go, buy a policy, and if your IVF isn’t successful, it’s covered.

Claire Tomkins: You just file an insurance claim—just like trip insurance or any other policy. If you don’t get a baby, we’ll send your money back.

Alejandro Cremades: I think that probably…

Claire Tomkins: This was a personal passion project of mine.

Alejandro Cremades: I mean, this is amazing.

Claire Tomkins: I dreamt of this product for years. Founders get obsessed—I was obsessed with this for years.

Alejandro Cremades: This is amazing. For people who may not be familiar—fertility treatment is costly, right? What’s the average cost?

Claire Tomkins: Yeah, we can start with a 25-day cycle.

Claire Tomkins: We’re writing insurance policies for $40,000 or $50,000. And growing up in the Midwest, I can tell you—it’s a huge financial exposure to say, “I’m going to do two rounds of IVF.”

Claire Tomkins: It might cost $40,000 or $50,000. And if it doesn’t work—what happens?

Claire Tomkins: The Munich Re Ventures team understood this from the beginning. It was like—this is insurable risk. The success rates have improved. We can write a policy.

Claire Tomkins: But more importantly, how do we help more Americans start their families?

Claire Tomkins: My co-founder on the product, Jason Sellers, always says, “I have a great relationship with my wife, and I’m in this because I want to reduce marital conflict.”

Claire Tomkins: He doesn’t want people to fight about IVF because one person wants a baby and the other is saying it’s financial Armageddon. We’ve been very passionate about this product, and we launched “Baby or Your Money Back” on February 19th…

Claire Tomkins: …of this year. And I know that date by heart because we launched the product on my daughter’s 10th birthday.

Alejandro Cremades: Wow. What a big deal. Now, let’s talk about going to sleep tonight. Let’s say you go to sleep and wake up in a world where the vision of the company is fully realized.

Alejandro Cremades: What does that world look like?

Claire Tomkins: Hmm. I do sometimes go to that world. I think for me, as we talked about this being a new asset class—what it takes to pioneer one—I think of it that way.

Claire Tomkins: We just take for granted now that if you buy a house, you get a mortgage. If you buy a car, you get an auto loan. If you go to college, you take a student loan.

Claire Tomkins: I think of it that way. I wake up believing that everyone will say, “Oh yeah, of course, I’m ready to have a family.”

Claire Tomkins: “So I’m getting a financing plan or a loan to start my family—and I’m getting a ‘Baby or Your Money Back’ guarantee.” And that becomes the new norm.

Claire Tomkins: It’s just not a financially stressful experience—and hopefully less emotionally stressful—to start your family in this country.

Claire Tomkins: That’s the world I wake up in.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing. Now let’s say I put you in a time machine, Claire, and bring you back to that dinner where you were chatting with your husband.

Alejandro Cremades: And let’s say I give you the opportunity to sit down next to your younger self. What would you whisper in her ear—one piece of advice before launching the business?

Claire Tomkins: That’s a great question. There’s such a big need in Silicon Valley and elsewhere to always say you’re crushing it, that things are going great. But no founder looks back and doesn’t think they’d do some things differently.

Claire Tomkins: I think I’d go back to what I shared earlier. The most profound part of the journey has been building authentic relationships—and managing “founder mode.”

Claire Tomkins: Now there’s a lot of chatter about how amazing founder mode is. And there’s a time and place. But in founder mode, you can mow over people. So there’s a time and place.

Claire Tomkins: I’d whisper to myself: focus on that. Not just the product. Not just the scale. You have this fire inside you, but also focus on the team, the communication—unleash everyone else’s power around you.

Alejandro Cremades: I love that. Claire, for the people listening who want to reach out, say hi, or learn more—what’s the best way?

Claire Tomkins: Amazing. We’d love to hear from all of you. And if you’re going through IVF, please, please make sure you get an insurance policy—Baby or Your Money Back.

Claire Tomkins: You can visit the company at futurefamily.com. You can also visit insuremyivf.com to go directly to the application for the guarantee.

Claire Tomkins: You can email me at cl****@**********ly.com or follow us on our various social channels. Alejandro, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today.

Alejandro Cremades: Thank you, Claire. It has been an absolute honor to have you with us.

*****

If you like the show, make sure that you hit that subscribe button. If you can leave a review as well, that would be fantastic. And if you got any value either from this episode or from the show itself, share it with a friend. Perhaps they will also appreciate it. Also, remember, if you need any help, whether it is with your fundraising efforts or with selling your business, you can reach me at al*******@**************rs.com

 

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