Advancing Digital Sexual Health Verification

Ifeanyi ‘Ify’ Umezulike, founder of Glowcheck, a UK-based digital sexual health verification platform, has secured grant funding from Hatch to advance the startup’s research, product development and partnership drive.

The funding is expected to support the venture’s transition from concept validation to real-world testing as it seeks to make sexual health testing, verification and disclosure easier and more accessible.

Glowcheck is designed to help individuals maintain a portable record of their sexual health tests, understand their results and, where they choose, share verified information with their partners.

The platform also plans to work with partner clinics and laboratories to ensure the reliability of test results, while supporting more transparent conversations about sexual health.

Fostering Open Conversations and Routine Testing

Umezulike said the grant represented an important milestone in the development of the startup, providing an opportunity to refine its business direction, learn from industry experts and engage with other entrepreneurs.

Being accepted onto Hatch was one of the moments where building Glowcheck started to feel very real. The programme gave me the chance to learn from experts, sharpen the direction of the business and be around other founders going through the same process of building something from the ground up.

— Ifeanyi Umezulike, Founder, Glowcheck

He explained that his ambition extended beyond creating another digital health application to changing how people approach sexual health and relationships.

My dream for Glowcheck is much bigger than creating another digital health app. I want us to help make routine testing, verified information and honest sexual health conversations feel normal, part of how people take care of themselves and each other.

— Ifeanyi Umezulike, Founder, Glowcheck

Beyond providing a digital record-keeping service, the startup aims to encourage routine testing and promote a culture in which sexual health conversations are approached with greater openness and responsibility.

Addressing Trust and Relationship Dynamics

The idea behind Glowcheck emerged from a personal experience that exposed the challenges surrounding trust and disclosure in sexual relationships.

According to the founder, his concern deepened after he witnessed a close friend’s lifelong sexually transmitted infection (STI) diagnosis being minimised by a partner.

The experience prompted him to question why critical sexual health conversations continued to depend largely on verbal assurances when digital technology could provide ways to verify important information.

That concern became the foundation for Glowcheck, which seeks to give individuals greater control over their sexual health information while providing a means of sharing verified records with partners, subject to their consent.

Building a Global Trust Layer

Its model is intended to complement existing sexual health services rather than replace formal healthcare systems, with partnerships with clinics and laboratories expected to play a role in the verification process.

The Hatch grant provides additional support as Glowcheck moves towards testing its concept in practical settings and identifying partners that can help advance its operations. In the long term, the company hopes to establish what it describes as a global trust layer around existing sexual health services by connecting testing, verified records and disclosure.

The approach is intended to reduce the barriers people encounter when seeking to communicate their sexual health status, while encouraging stronger engagement with healthcare providers.

Umezulike, whose background spans marketing, communications and advocacy, is applying his experience in strategy, branding and public-facing campaigns to the startup’s focus on trust, behavioural change and user adoption. Glowcheck is positioning itself at the intersection of digital technology and sexual health, with a focus on helping people access and share understandable health information on their own terms as it works toward broader product refinement.