Fiona Brownfoot
Co-Founder at Kali Healthcare
Fiona Brownfoot is an associate professor, practising obstetrician at the Mercy Hospital for Women, and co-founder of Kali Healthcare, a University of Melbourne spin-out. Alongside researchers Professor Marimuthu Palaniswami and Dr Emerson Keenan, she is developing a wearable fetal heart-rate monitor designed to let pregnant women move freely while enabling home-based monitoring through telehealth. The startup closed a $1 million pre-seed round in 2023, backed by the University of Melbourne, LaunchVic's Alice Anderson Fund and private investors, and has since run pilot clinical trials at Mercy Hospital ahead of its first regulatory trial. She discussed the technology on The New Script's episode about reimagining fetal monitoring.
Career
- Now Co-Founder · Kali Healthcare
- Earlier Clinician Scientist / Associate Professor · University of Melbourne
- Earlier Obstetrician · Mercy Hospital for Women
- Earlier Obstetrician · Epworth Freemasons
Sources: kalihealthcare.com
Key moments
Jump straight to the part of How Kali Healthcare is Reimagining Fetal Monitoring to Improve Pregnancy Outcomes you want.
- 2:45 Fiona and Emerson speak about their backgrounds
- 3:26 Origins of Kali Healthcare
- 6:00 How Kali Healthcare's electrical sensing wearable patch works
- 7:27 How clinicians are making use of the real-time insights
- 10:00 What makes Kali Healthcare’s wearable different to existing solutions
- 13:33 Breakthroughs they’ve experienced
- 16:00 Stepping into the founder role and the "ultimate rollercoaster"
- 20:02 Fundraising lessons: why it always takes longer than you think
- 21:09 Advice for other healthcare founders
Connections
Spot something wrong? Suggest a correction Updated 25 September 2026
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