Lilu co-founders Sujay Suresh and Adriana Vazquez Ortiz are making significant strides in the evolving landscape of postpartum care. With a mission to enhance the breastfeeding experience through technology, Lilu is pioneering in the maternal health sector. The duo has developed innovative products like the Omni Breast Pump and MilkSense Smart Bra to ease new mothers’ physical, mental, and emotional challenges by leveraging IoT, robotics, and engineering expertise.
We reached out to Sujay to learn about their journey, exploring the inception of Lilu, the challenges they faced, the solutions they offered, and their vision for transforming postpartum care.
Can you briefly describe Lilu?
Founded by engineers from MIT and the University of Pennsylvania, Lilu is committed to improving postpartum care by addressing the physical, mental, and emotional challenges associated with breastfeeding and pumping.
We’re leveraging IoT and robotics to build two complementary products:
- Omni Breast Pump – the ultimate breast pump that uses our patented and validated breast massage technology to help moms pump 50% more milk! It is comfortable, portable, discreet, and hassle-free.
- MilkSense Smart Bra and Lactation Tracking App use our proprietary sensors and machine learning algorithms to capture a wealth of data around lactation breast health at an unprecedented scale and help over 40% of new moms who struggle with postpartum anxiety and depression by providing them with actionable insights about their lactation and well being.
Our products are backed by scientific research and designed with insights and feedback from hundreds of moms and lactation experts.
What inspired you to take the leap and start this company?
We started Lilu after discovering how outdated breastfeeding and pumping technologies are and how lack of proper tools is one of the leading causes for early cessation of breastfeeding.
We noticed a recurring theme among our friend circle — of them returning to work after maternity leave and struggling to make breastfeeding work. We were surprised to see the same theme play repeatedly among our professors and peers, who were leading roboticists and designers. Curious to understand why this problem is so prevalent, we set out to learn more.
After listening to hundreds of moms about their breastfeeding struggles and lactation experts about the lack of research and innovation in the maternal health space, we were appalled. We knew we could use our backgrounds as engineers and product designers to build products that better serve the needs of the modern mom.
Today, we have
- Launched our first product, a massaging pumping bra, and shipped to over 2500 customers
- Been granted two patents in the US and one in China
- Received FDA Class 1 clearance
Most importantly, we’ve had moms who were about to quit breastfeeding come back and tell us that our product was a breastfeeding savior — and moms of preemies have called it a lifesaver!
Who is on your team and how did you come together?
The team is currently headed by myself and my cofounder, Adriana Vazquez Ortiz.
My background is in Electrical Engineering. I did my Bachelor’s at Osmania University in India and my master’s at UPenn. Before Lilu, I cofounded Jyothi, a nonprofit organization in India, to help survivors of harassment and rape by offering them a platform to voice their grievances anonymously. I was named in Forbes 30 under 30 in healthcare in 2022.
Adriana’s background is in mathematics, computer science, and product design, with a bachelor’s from MIT and a Master’s from UPenn. She was a software developer and product designer at Morgan Stanley, BMW, and Farmivore.
We’re backed by a stellar team including Ragini, Lead Product Engineer; Jesse, Business Operations Manager; Dr. Stephen Allen, Data Scientist; Jennifer Enriquez, Electrical Engineer; LiAn Delos Reyes, Customer Success Expert, who brings 15+ years of experience in Engineering, Business Operations and Customer Experience.
Our stellar Advisory Board brings a wealth of knowledge in Engineering, Medicine, Business Strategy, and Supply Chain — including Dr. Diane Spatz, the Director of the Lactation Program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Kara Forney, the founder of the Bump, a leading publication for maternity and baby care, which she successfully exited to the XO group.
Lilu cofounders Adriana Vazquez Ortiz (left) and Sujay Suresh (right)
What does the competitive landscape look like and how do you differentiate? What kind of defensibility moat do you have around your products?
Up-and-coming companies have launched portable and discreet wearable breast pumps. While these pumps solve the important portability problem, they are still inefficient in milk expression and can result in painful conditions like clogged ducts and mastitis. Mature firms in the industry offer more affordable breast pumping options, but these lag behind in innovation, are loud, bulky, and inconvenient
As for breast milk tracking, there is currently no comprehensive solution to accurately track and manage breast milk production and expression during pumping and direct feeding.
Through our Omni and MilkSense product lines, Lilu offers a comprehensive platform of solutions to help moms pump, track, and manage breast milk production.
We’ve built strong moats, including:
IP:
We have two granted patents in the US and one in China for our breast massage technology, designed to mimic the motions recommended by lactation experts to help moms pump up to 55% more milk.
Additionally, we have one pending global application (PCT) for the MilkSense smart bra. We’re adding more IP for the wearable pump and adjacent use cases for the massage and smart sensor technologies.
Lactation community:
We have the support of 300+ lactation experts, including Dr. Diane Spatz, a world-renowned lactation expert on our advisory board.
Recognition and endorsement from the lactation community and partnerships with other up-and-coming companies in the space give the Lilu brand credibility.
Team:
We have a stellar team with a strong technical background and a track record in launching and scaling products.
You have some exciting products that are still in beta. Can you tell us about these new products and the timeline for future launches?
We’re building two key complementary product lines to make breastfeeding more comfortable and pain-free.
- Omni Breast Pump
- Milksense Smart Bra & Lactation Tracking App
The MilkSense Lactation Tracking App is in beta, and we’ve been gathering incredible mom feedback. With this feedback and insights incorporated into the app, we plan to launch the app on both the Apple and Android app stores in April 2024.
With the MilkSense Mobile App, we aim to help moms track their breastfeeding, breastfeeding, and bottle-feeding sessions. Using powerful machine learning algorithms will give moms actionable insights about their physical and mental well-being.
As for Omni, we’re currently working with Angie Kim, a leading designer in women’s health and wearables industries, to finalize the revolutionary breast pump. Through 2024, we will beta-test the pump with moms and submit our 510K application to the FDA. We anticipate launching the pump in Q1 of 2025.
What is the most important lesson you learned as an entrepreneur?
Every day comes to you with a new set of challenges. To be a successful entrepreneur, you must learn to build resilience and use your gathered resources to overcome these challenges.
It is near impossible to do this alone — it is vital to build a strong support system that includes your friends and family, advisors and investors who believe in your mission and your competence in leading this, and last but not least, customers who give you honest feedback about your products and services, so you can constantly learn and improve.
If we talk again in 12 months, which milestones will you have achieved?
12 months from now, we will have launched the MilkSense Mobile App on the Apple and Android app stores and reached 5000 daily active users.
We will also have wrapped up the development of the Omni Breast Pump, after rigorous pilot tests with 100+ moms.
On the fundraising front, we will wrap up our Wefunder campaign in April and hope to close our seed round of $1.25M by Q2 2024.
This will enable us to onboard our Heads of Marketing and Sales to help set ourselves up for a successful launch for Omni in Q1 2025 and achieve rapid growth with the Milksense Lactation App.
