🌟 In this week’s briefing:

• 🇺🇸 Trump signs an executive order on women’s health research - but will it mean more funding?

• 💰 New funding: Sprout Family raises C$3.55m, while Unravel Health secures £2.5m to develop at-home hormone testing.

• 🤝 Millie and El Camino Health offer another model for integrating specialist women’s health startups into hospital care.

• 🔬 Women’s health receives just 1.86% of Horizon Europe funding contributions, according to new research.

Share your news: anna@futurefemhealth.com

But first... launching FemTick!

Something a little different from me this week! After three years investigating censorship and bias affecting women’s health businesses, my CensHERship co-founder Clio Wood and I are launching FemTick.

Our research found that barriers go well beyond social media. Women’s health founders can face problems accessing banking, insurance and payment services, sometimes because their products are incorrectly classified as adult or high-risk. In other cases, existing policies and risk frameworks haven’t kept pace with innovation, such as the use of menstrual blood for diagnostic testing. And sometimes, it’s just suppliers who get a bit, well, squeamish talking about certain parts of women’s health. All of this costs businesses valuable time and revenue.

FemTick is a new standard to help founders identify service providers committed to supporting women’s health businesses without bias.

Providers undergo an assessment, and those meeting the standard can display the FemTick badge.

We’re delighted to launch with nine founding partners: HSBC Innovation Banking, Tokio Marine Kiln, Commerce, Mills & Reeve, Withum, Practicus, NovaBook, LT PR, and Communia.

If you’re a founder, look out for the FemTick badge. And if you’re a service provider interested in getting involved, we’d love to hear from you.

👉 Read the full FemTick story or get in touch at anna@censhership.com and clio@censhership.com.

_{Disclosure: FutureFemHealth founder Anna O’Sullivan is also co-founder of CensHERship, the organisation behind FemTick.}

💰 Capital flows

📌 US/SPAIN: Hologic to acquire breast cancer diagnostics startup Reveal Genomics. Personalised breast cancer treatment is the focus of Hologic’s latest acquisition, with the diagnostics group agreeing to buy Barcelona-based Reveal Genomics. Its HER2DX genomic test helps clinicians guide treatment decisions for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, adding to Hologic’s precision oncology portfolio. The deal follows Hologic’s acquisition by private equity firms Blackstone and TPG earlier this year. Financial terms were not disclosed. (Continue reading: Hologic)

📌 US: Labcorp to acquire Myriad Genetics’ prenatal testing business for $210m. A sizeable deal in reproductive diagnostics, with Labcorp agreeing to acquire Myriad’s prenatal testing portfolio, including its Prequel and Foresight genetic screening tests. The business has served more than 600,000 patients over the past year and is expected to add around $160m in annual revenue to Labcorp. For Myriad, the sale will free up resources to focus on cancer diagnostics, while Labcorp expands its women’s health testing portfolio. The deal is expected to close by early 2027, subject to regulatory approval. (Continue reading: Labcorp)

📌 CANADA: Sprout Family raises C$3.55m to expand fertility and family-building benefits. With infertility now as prevalent as diabetes in Canada and a single IVF cycle costing upwards of $20,000, employers have a growing role to play in supporting staff. Toronto-based Sprout Family has raised an oversubscribed seed round to expand its benefits platform across fertility, pregnancy, postpartum and return-to-work support. Founded in 2023, Sprout says access to its services has grown elevenfold. BDC’s Thrive Venture Fund led the round. (Continue reading: Sprout Family)

📌 UK: Unravel Health raises £2.5m to develop at-home hormone monitoring technology. Blood tests offer a snapshot of hormone levels, while wearables can track patterns but can’t measure hormones directly. London-based Unravel Health wants to bridge that gap with a palm-sized device that measures four hormones simultaneously from saliva in minutes. Developed over ten years at the University of Glasgow, the technology could help women track hormonal changes from PMOS to perimenopause. Conduit EIS Impact Fund and Wrightwood led the round, with early-access devices planned for 2027.(Continue reading: EU startups)

Also funded: US-based LGBTQ+ therapy platform Allswell raised $7m; Danish perineal-tear prevention device Oasicare secured funding from Unconventional Ventures (no amount disclosed).

🌟 Industry moves and strategic shifts

📌 US: Millie and El Camino Health launch joint maternity care model. Another interesting example of women’s health startups working with hospitals rather than competing against them. Maternity startup Millie is partnering with California’s El Camino Health to open a joint clinic in Palo Alto later this year, combining midwifery-led pregnancy and postpartum care with hospital delivery and specialist services. It follows last week’s Dry Days Health–Parkview Health partnership, which similarly connects virtual care with hospital services. A second Millie clinic is planned. (Continue reading: Millie)

📌 US: SimBioSys receives FDA clearance for AI breast cancer risk tool. Could existing breast MRI scans help doctors assess recurrence risk before surgery? Chicago-based SimBioSys has received FDA clearance for TumorSight Risk, which combines MRI, pathology and clinical data to estimate five- and ten-year recurrence risk in certain early-stage breast cancers. The software was validated using data from 2,129 patients. (Continue reading: SimBioSys)

📌 GLOBAL: Women’s health innovations feature in TIME’s Best Inventions of 2026. Congratulations to the femtech companies on this year’s list! Among them are Peri, a wearable tracking perimenopause symptoms; MyCelsius, a cooling bracelet for hot flushes; and Samphire Neuroscience, whose Nettle headband uses neurostimulation to help manage menstrual pain and mood symptoms. (Continue reading: TIME)

📌 GLOBAL: Withings analysis of 469,000 menstrual cycles finds three in four women sleep worse before their period. Women may be getting almost as much sleep before their period as during the rest of their cycle, but the quality appears to suffer. Analysing 469,000 menstrual cycles, Withings found that 76% of women experienced poorer sleep quality before menstruation, including less deep sleep, higher nighttime heart rates and lower heart rate variability. Women using hormonal contraception showed smaller fluctuations. (Continue reading: Withings)

📌 US: Midi Health expands beyond menopause into common infections. Having built its business around menopause care, Midi is moving into more everyday women’s health needs. Its new service offers same-day virtual consultations for UTIs, bacterial vaginosis and yeast infections across all 50 states, with prescriptions where appropriate and visits covered by most major commercial insurers. (Continue reading: Midi Health)

📌 US: ProMom relaunches app with more focus on mothers’ health. Pregnancy apps often focus heavily on the baby, but what about the mother? San Francisco-based ProMom has relaunched its app with personalised guidance from preconception through the first two years postpartum, including appointment preparation, meal planning and tracking for mothers as well as babies. The AI-powered app uses clinically reviewed guidance and promises no advertising or sale of user data. (Continue reading: ProMom)

🩸 Research and women’s health news

📌 GLOBAL: New research reveals a biological ‘cliff’ around menopause. Menopause affects far more than reproductive health, and some of the changes may be more sudden than we previously thought. Analysing over 300 million blood tests from more than one million women, researchers found sharp changes around menopause in markers linked to bone health, cholesterol, liver and kidney function. Women using hormone therapy showed smaller changes in several measures. Published in Nature Medicine, the findings add to our understanding of menopause as a whole-body transition. (Continue reading: Nature Medicine)

📌 US: Ovaries may remain biologically active long after menopause, new research finds. It turns out the ovaries don’t simply retire once their reproductive work is done. Researchers at Northwestern University and the Buck Institute analysed ovarian tissue from 28 women aged 50 to 75 and found that the organs continue to change decades after menopause, including changes linked to inflammation and tissue structure. Some of the molecular patterns were also associated with ovarian cancer, raising new questions about the role ovaries play in women’s health later in life. (Continue reading: Northwestern University)

📌 UK: SheMed publishes one of the largest real-world studies of GLP-1 treatment in women. More than 8,000 women participated in the study with UCL, published in Nature Medicine. After six months of digitally delivered GLP-1 treatment, participants with follow-up weight data had lost an average of 15.5% of their body weight, with improvements in metabolic health. More than 91% remained on treatment. The findings offer valuable real-world evidence for digital obesity care in women, although the study had no comparison group.(Continue reading: SheMed)

📌 EUROPE: Women’s health receives just 1.86% of Horizon Europe funding contributions, new analysis finds. Despite growing attention on women’s health, a new report from the Centre for European Policy Studies found that just 596 of 22,528 Horizon Europe projects examined between 2021 and July 2026 were related to women’s health. These accounted for 2.65% of projects but only 1.86% of European Commission contributions. The researchers also identified gaps in cardiovascular and autoimmune disease research and a lack of funding to move discoveries towards clinical use and commercialisation. (Continue reading: CEPS)

📄 Policy watch: risks and opportunities

📌 US: Trump signs executive order on women’s health research. Trump signing an executive order on women’s health was certainly not on my predictions list for 2026! What’s promising is that the order takes a broad view of women’s health beyond reproductive health including cardiovascular disease, autoimmune conditions, endometriosis, menopause, osteoporosis and Alzheimer’s disease. But the big question is whether it will bring genuinely new investment into women’s health research or simply redirect funding and resources already allocated elsewhere. (Continue reading: The White House)

📌 US: ACOG gives hormone therapy a strong recommendation in updated menopause guidance. In its most comprehensive menopause treatment guidance in more than a decade, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has formally given systemic hormone therapy a strong recommendation for hot flushes, night sweats and related sleep problems in women without contraindications. While ACOG already considered hormone therapy the most effective treatment, the new guidance uses an updated evidence-grading framework and provides clearer recommendations on treatment timing.(Continue reading: Contemporary OB/GYN)

📆 Save the date

• UK: Rules of reproduction - who gets to build the future of fertility? London. November 3. 👉 Register here.

• CANADA: Annual Femtech Canada Forum. Toronto. November 3. 👉 Register here. Use code FTC_25promo for 25% off tickets.

• CANADA: Women’s Health Investor Networking Event. Toronto. November 9. 👉 Register here.

• FRANCE: Women’s Health Europe Forum. Paris. November 27. 👉 Register here

That’s all for this week. If you found this briefing useful, please forward it to someone working in women’s health.

Anna

PS - even more from FutureFemHealth….

• 📊 Go deeper with FutureFemHealth Pro. Explore original funding data, emerging markets and analysis of the businesses shaping women’s health. Explore Pro.

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• 🤝 Want to reach the sector? Ask about newsletter sponsorships and research partnerships. Get in touch.

This newsletter is for informational purposes only and should not be considered medical or financial advice.

Women’s health companies have long faced restrictions advertising their products on social media. But the same problems are also affecting their ability to access some of the most basic services needed to run a business, from banking and insurance to payments and ecommerce.

Now, a new initiative aims to help change that.

FemTick, an accreditation developed by women’s health advocacy organisation CensHERship, has launched with nine founding partners, including HSBC Innovation Banking, Tokio Marine Kiln, Commerce, Withum, Practicus, Novabook, Mills & Reeve, LT PR and Communia.

Spanning banking, insurance, ecommerce, accountancy, legal services, recruitment and communications, the partners will help shape the accreditation as it expands to additional service providers.

“Women’s health is a fast-growing area of healthcare innovation with significant unmet need. We’re seeing high-quality innovation across the sector, but companies still face barriers to accessing capital, commercialising their products and scaling successfully,” said Emma Stephens, Head of Growth and Financing, HSBC Innovation Banking UK.

“With one of the world’s strongest innovation ecosystems, the UK is well placed to drive progress in this space, and we’re proud to support the extraordinary innovators shaping its future.”

Through FemTick, service providers undergo an assessment of how they classify, review and support women’s health businesses. Those meeting the standard can display the FemTick badge, helping founders identify organisations that understand their sector and are committed to providing services free from bias.

“There are already organisations doing great work to support women’s health businesses, but founders don’t always know where to find them,” said Anna O’Sullivan and Clio Wood, co-founders of CensHERship.

“FemTick is about making those organisations easier to find, helping founders access the services they need and encouraging more providers to support the sector.”

Barrier to basic services

The FemTick initiative builds on three years of CensHERship research into censorship and structural bias affecting women’s health companies, which has revealed how restrictions extend well beyond social media platforms.

Its 2026 Bias Burden report found that every women’s health company surveyed had encountered barriers accessing financial or commercial services, with more than 60% reporting lost revenue as a result.

In some cases, the problems stem from automated classification and risk assessment systems similar to those behind restrictions on women’s health advertising. Words such as “menstrual”, “vagina” and “sexual health” can trigger systems designed to flag adult content or high-risk businesses, even when the companies involved are selling legitimate healthcare products.

In others, existing policies and risk assessments haven’t kept pace with innovation. Emerging technologies, such as the use of menstrual blood for diagnostics, may not fit neatly into established categories, creating additional scrutiny or barriers for businesses developing them.

“We started by investigating why women’s health content was being censored on social media, but what we uncovered was a much bigger problem,” said Clio.

“Companies were telling us they couldn’t access payment services, were being refused insurance or were struggling to open bank accounts. These are the basic services every business needs, yet women’s health companies were finding themselves excluded because of what they sell.”

Building the infrastructure for women's health

Rather than creating another campaign focused on the barriers, FemTick aims to help build the commercial infrastructure that women’s health businesses need to grow, bringing together service providers committed to supporting the sector.

“There’s understandably been a lot of attention on investment in women’s health, but much less discussion about the infrastructure these businesses need to operate,” said Anna.

“You can develop an incredible new product and raise investment, but if you can’t process payments, obtain insurance or access the basic services every business relies on, you’re going to struggle to grow. We want to recognise the organisations getting this right and encourage others to follow.”

Women’s health investor Cristina Ljungberg, co-founder of The Case for Her, also welcomed the initiative, highlighting the importance of giving founders greater visibility of organisations that understand the market.

FemTick is now inviting additional financial and commercial service providers to participate as it expands the initiative. Organisations interested in joining can find out more at femtick.com.

Disclosure: FutureFemHealth founder Anna O’Sullivan is also co-founder of CensHERship, the organisation behind FemTick.

Two of femtech’s biggest names made major moves this week, in very different directions. While Flo deepens its relationship with Google, Clue is turning its cycle-tracking app into a gateway to healthcare services. Both offer an interesting glimpse of where the next phase of femtech might be heading.

🌟 In this week’s briefing:

• 🤝 Google Health partners with Flo, including a strategic investment

• 💰 Allara raises $30m to expand insurance-covered women’s healthcare

• ✅ Gates Foundation and Wellcome Leap commit $100m to stillbirth prevention

• 🩺 Clue moves beyond cycle tracking to connect users with healthcare providers

Share your news: anna@futurefemhealth.com

But first…

Up to 80% of people living with autoimmune diseases are women - so who is building better ways to diagnose and treat them?

I’ve tracked $773.8m in funding since 2022 for companies with a primary or majority focus on women’s health within the autoimmune disease market.

But where is that money going? What are these companies developing? And could autoimmune disease become a bigger focus for women’s health innovation?

My latest piece:

Read the full analysis on FutureFemHealth Pro

💰 Capital flows

📌 US: Allara raises $30m to expand insurance-covered women’s healthcare. Unlike many virtual women’s health providers that rely on subscriptions or out-of-pocket payments, New York-based Allara works with major US insurers to provide ongoing specialist care for hormonal, metabolic and reproductive conditions. Originally focused on PMOS, the company has expanded into menopause, weight management and other areas, serving more than 120,000 women. The funding will support further expansion through employers and healthcare partnerships, alongside AI tools to improve clinical efficiency. The round brings total funding to $75m, with backing from Index Ventures, GV, Camino Partners, Foreground Capital and Family Fund. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 GLOBAL: Gates Foundation and Wellcome Leap commit $100m to tackle stillbirths. Almost two million babies are stillborn each year, yet stillbirth prevention remains an underfunded area of maternal healthcare. The Gates Foundation and Wellcome Leap are committing $50m each over three years to Uzima, a new programme aiming to halve stillbirth rates in selected countries over the next decade. Initially focused on sub-Saharan Africa, the programme will identify and validate technologies including AI-assisted ultrasound, pregnancy diagnostics and labour monitoring, with the aim of bringing effective solutions into routine care. The first technologies are expected to be selected by early 2027. (Continue reading: Gates Foundation)

📌 US: Collective X Health raises $3.2m to launch women’s health intelligence platform. As wearables and digital health companies introduce more female-specific features, Collective X Health is developing a way for them to access the scientific evidence behind those products. Co-founded by women’s health researcher Dr Stacy Sims, the company reviews and structures existing research and female-specific data, which businesses can license through an API to inform their health and performance insights. Collective X has launched with its first paying customers and research partnerships, including WildAI and Open Medicine Foundation. The pre-seed round was co-led by Council Capital and Anthemis Female Innovators Lab Fund.(Continue reading: Collective X Health)

📌 INDIA: B-Arm raises ₹4.8 crore to expand women’s health portfolio. From pregnancy and breastfeeding to pelvic health and menopause, Tamil Nadu-based B-Arm Medical Technologies is developing products across different stages of women’s lives. The company has raised ₹4.8 crore (approx $540,000) in pre-Series A funding to expand its product portfolio and reach across India. The investment brings its total funding to approximately ₹9 crore, including debt financing, with the latest round led by Mudhal Partners. (Continue reading: Indian startup news)

🌟 Industry moves and strategic shifts

📌 GLOBAL: Google Health and Flo Health partner to connect wearable and menstrual health data. It was just last year that Google and Flo agreed to a multimillion-dollar settlement following allegations of sharing sensitive reproductive health data without consent. Now, the two are teaming up to, well, share data. With explicit user consent this time, both emphasise. The multi-year partnership will combine Flo’s cycle tracking with Google’s wearable data to develop personalised health insights, AI-powered coaching and new products, alongside research into areas including perimenopause and PMOS. Google Health has also made an undisclosed strategic investment in Flo, with the first integrations expected in early 2027. Google Health also made a bigger push into preventative and personalised healthcare this week, with announced partnerships with Function and Abbott too. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 GERMANY: Clue moves beyond period tracking to connect users with healthcare providers. Reaching consumers in women’s health is hard, and getting harder with social media censorship, tighter health advertising rules and rising platform costs. Now, Clue is positioning its cycle-tracking app as a gateway for women’s health brands to reach potential customers, while offering users a more connected route to care. Its new Get Care service links users with specialist providers across contraception, fertility, diagnostics, metabolic health and mental health, with partners including Hertility, Embla and Evaro. Clue is also working with Novo Nordisk on women’s metabolic health. Available in the UK, US and Germany, the service is free to users, with menopause care planned from November. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 US: Nine fertility clinic brands unite under Everleap Fertility. Consolidation in the US fertility market is taking another step, with IVI RMA North America bringing nine established clinic brands, including RMA and Boston IVF, under a single identity. The new Everleap Fertility network spans more than 65 clinics and 26 IVF laboratories. Alongside the rebrand, Everleap has launched AiVA, an AI-powered clinical decision-support tool integrated with its electronic medical records system, for more consistent and personalised fertility care at scale. (Continue reading: Everleap Fertility)

📌 SWITZERLAND: Scanvio secures CE marking for AI-assisted endometriosis ultrasound software. Diagnosing endometriosis through ultrasound needs specialist expertise that isn’t always widely available. Zurich-based ETH spinout Scanvio Medical has received Class IIa CE marking for Scanvio Assist, which uses AI to help clinicians identify signs of endometriosis during routine ultrasound examinations. Designed to work with existing equipment, the technology could make specialist diagnostic support more accessible without requiring clinics to invest in new scanners. The company is now beginning its rollout to gynaecologists, fertility clinics and endometriosis centres across Europe. (Continue reading: Startup ticker)

📌 US: Dry Days Health partners with Parkview Health to connect virtual and in-person bladder care. Rather than competing with traditional healthcare providers, specialist women’s health startups are finding opportunities to work alongside them. Dry Days Health has partnered with Parkview Health to offer women with urinary incontinence a more connected care pathway. Patients who can be treated remotely will receive care through Dry Days’ virtual clinic, while those needing diagnostics, procedures or surgery can access Parkview’s existing services. The partnership offers an interesting model for how specialist telehealth companies can expand their reach without building their own physical infrastructure. (Continue reading: Health Tech World)

📌 NETHERLANDS: Sibyl expands into UK fertility care through new partnership. Pregnancy loss support often ends when patients leave the clinic, a gap Rotterdam-based Sibyl is looking to address. The company has partnered with UK virtual fertility clinic Plan Your Baby to offer patients free access to its digital companion, providing clinically reviewed information and emotional support. The agreement marks Sibyl’s first UK partnership, following pilots with two Dutch healthcare providers that have requested to continue offering the service. (Continue reading: Plan Your Baby on LinkedIn)

📌 PORTUGAL: Sword Health expands pelvic health care into national healthcare system. Doctors across Portugal’s National Health Service can now prescribe Sword Health’s digital pelvic floor rehabilitation programme free of charge to patients. The service combines at-home treatment, AI-enabled technology and specialist clinical support for conditions including urinary incontinence, pelvic pain and postpartum recovery. The government estimates that up to one million women could benefit.(Continue reading: Sword)

📌 AUSTRALIA: Investors recognise the women’s health opportunity, but few are changing how they invest. A new white paper from the Centre for Sex and Gender Equity in Health & Medicine found that while 11 of 14 Australian investors surveyed considered gender equity in investment decisions, fewer than a quarter had structured due diligence questions on gender-related health data. The report argues that women’s health remains undervalued, particularly across major healthcare markets including cardiovascular disease, autoimmune conditions and cancer. It also identifies a shortage of mid-stage capital as a major barrier to scaling Australian women’s health innovations. (Continue reading: Centre for Sex and Gender Equity in Health & Medicine)

🩸 Research and women’s health news

📌 US: New women’s health institute aims to turn mammograms into an opportunity for heart disease prevention. Mammograms can reveal breast arterial calcification (BAC), a marker associated with cardiovascular disease, but the finding is not routinely reported or followed up. The newly launched Institute Advancing Women’s Health is working with Washington Research Foundation to develop approaches for integrating BAC reporting into clinical care. The technology isn’t new; the challenge is getting health systems to act on information they already collect. Maryland became the first US state to require BAC reporting this month, adding momentum to efforts to connect breast screening with cardiovascular prevention. (Continue reading: InAWH)

📌 US: AOA Dx explores expansion of ovarian cancer test into endometrial and cervical cancers. New data from AOA Dx suggests its multi-omics liquid biopsy technology could have applications beyond ovarian cancer. Its lead test, Omira OC, showed promising performance in an independent patient dataset, while early findings point to potential applications in endometrial and cervical cancer detection. The company is also adapting the technology for use on existing clinical laboratory equipment, which could make it easier to scale. Further clinical validation is needed. (Continue reading: Clp)

📄 Policy watch: risks and opportunities

📌 BANGLADESH: €250m in existing development finance to be redirected towards women’s health. Women’s health is often funded through relatively small, standalone programmes. Bangladesh and the European Investment Bank are taking a different approach, with plans to redirect €250m from an existing healthcare loan towards maternal and newborn care, breast and cervical cancer services, and hospital improvements. The initiative could benefit 47 million women and girls and offers an interesting example of how women’s health can be incorporated into mainstream development financing. (Continue reading: United Nations)

📌 GLOBAL: Changing ulcer treatments could threaten access to a vital reproductive health medicine. What happens when a medicine essential to reproductive healthcare depends on a market originally developed for something else? Misoprostol is widely used for miscarriage management, labour induction, postpartum haemorrhage and abortion, but was originally developed to treat stomach ulcers. A new study examining global sales between 2007 and 2020 found that demand for some misoprostol-containing ulcer treatments has declined, raising questions about the longer-term resilience of supply for reproductive healthcare. While the study does not identify an imminent shortage, it highlights a potential vulnerability in access to an essential medicine. (Continue reading: Journal of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research)

📆 Save the date

📌 Women’s Health Europe Forum. Paris, France. November 27. A full day bringing together 200+ key players from across the European women’s health ecosystem. 👉 Register here

That’s all for this week! If you’ve missed any previous briefings catch them all at futurefemhealth.com and do make sure to follow us on LinkedIn and you can connect with me directly on LinkedIn.

Anna

US-based virtual women’s healthcare company Allara has raised $30m in new funding to expand its insurance-covered care model, enterprise partnerships and AI-enabled clinical services.

The round brings the company’s total funding to $75m, with existing investors Index Ventures and GV increasing their commitments. New investors include Camino Partners, Foreground Capital and Family Fund.

Founded by Rachel Blank, Allara provides virtual care for hormonal, metabolic and reproductive health conditions, pairing women’s health clinicians with registered dieticians to deliver ongoing medical treatment and nutritional support.

Rather than relying solely on direct patient payments, Allara works with major US insurers to cover eligible medical and nutrition consultations. Its care model combines specialist appointments, laboratory testing, medication management and personalised lifestyle support within a single platform.

The company has served more than 120,000 women across the US, including patients with PMOS, thyroid disorders, fertility concerns and metabolic conditions, as well as those navigating postpartum and perimenopause.

“We’ve proven at scale that integrated, insurance-covered care can produce meaningful outcomes for women,” said Rachel.

“Our next phase is about making that care dramatically more accessible. With broad insurance coverage, new distribution partnerships and technology that helps our care teams operate at scale, we have an opportunity to reach millions of women.”

The latest investment will support Allara’s next phase of growth, with a focus on expanding distribution through employers, healthcare providers and other strategic partners.

Allara already offers in-network access through major insurers in most US states. The company plans to build on these relationships and its existing clinical infrastructure to reach a wider patient population.

Expanding services and investing in AI

Allara has continued to broaden its clinical offering beyond its original focus on hormonal and metabolic conditions.

This year, the company expanded access to treatments including GLP-1 medications, supported by nutrition and lifestyle guidance, hormone replacement therapy, prescription skincare and hair loss medications.

It has also introduced virtual urgent care for conditions including bacterial vaginosis, urinary tract infections and sexually transmitted infection testing.

The expanded offering is intended to allow Allara to address a wider range of women’s health needs through a single care platform.

The company has also reported outcomes from its existing patient population. In a patient survey, 89% of respondents said they felt supported in making positive changes to their health, while 78% reported positive changes to their diet. Among those experiencing irregular menstrual cycles, 69% reported improvements in cycle regularity.

Among patients with obesity who had received care for at least six months, 73% lost weight, with 48% losing at least 5% of their body weight and 28% losing 10% or more, according to company data.

The new funding will also support further development of Allara’s proprietary AI technology.

The company is already using AI for clinical chart synthesis, decision support and provider assistance, and plans to introduce patient-facing AI tools within its app.

Allara says the technology is designed to increase clinical capacity and support patient outcomes while keeping healthcare professionals at the centre of care.

“Allara is delivering an exceptional care experience for women whose complex needs have fallen through cracks in the traditional healthcare system,” said Elle Lanning, president at Camino Partners.

“Rachel and her team have built an approach that meets women where they are, takes their conditions seriously, and consistently delivers outcomes through a unique multidisciplinary care model.”

Earlier this year, a biotech company developing a treatment for a disease in which 90% of patients are women extended its Series A to an extraordinary $426.3 million.

To put that into context, it’s almost as much as the entire $456.2m we tracked at FutureFemHealth in women’s health funding in Q3.

Yet you probably didn’t read about it in the women’s health press. Including here at FutureFemHealth.

The company is Beeline Medicines, which is developing precision therapies for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Its lead programme, afimetoran, is being developed for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), better known as lupus.

There’s a good reason Beeline hasn’t featured prominently in women’s health coverage. It isn’t a women’s health company. Its pipeline spans several autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, not just lupus, and its treatments aren’t being developed specifically for women.

But that doesn’t make its work any less relevant to women’s health. Its lead programme targets a disease that overwhelmingly affects women, and the scale of its financing suggests substantial investor appetite for developing new treatments in this area.

And Beeline isn’t alone.

Sling Therapeutics has recently raised $123 million to advance a potential treatment for thyroid eye disease, which predominantly affects women, through Phase III. Japan’s SiccaNova raised around $8 million for a potential treatment for Sjögren’s syndrome, where more than 90% of patients are women, with women’s health investor MPower Partners among its backers.

And in March, Prolium Bioscience raised $50 million in a Series A to develop a new treatment for severe autoimmune disease, initially targeting systemic sclerosis, another condition that disproportionately affects women.

These financings show growing investment in new approaches to treating autoimmune disease. And given the disproportionate impact of these conditions on women, I think they deserve more attention from the women’s health industry.

But there’s another reason I’ve been looking more closely at autoimmune.

As new treatments advance, they could create demand for better diagnostics, patient selection, monitoring and ongoing care. These are areas where investment has historically been much more limited.

Women account for an estimated 63% to 80% of people diagnosed with autoimmune diseases, depending on the source and definition, with an even greater imbalance in conditions including lupus and Sjögren’s.

So this week, I’ve been speaking to founders and investors working across autoimmune to understand what’s changing, where the commercial opportunities might be and what this could mean for women’s health.

Here are five things that stood out….

Read more

Google Health and Flo Health have announced a multi-year strategic partnership bringing together wearable health data and menstrual cycle tracking to develop more personalised health insights, new products and research focused on women’s health.

Alongside the partnership, Google Health has made a strategic investment in Flo. No deal terms were disclosed.

The partnership will allow users to connect data from Flo’s menstrual and reproductive health app with Google Health, combining cycle information with biometric measurements including resting heart rate, heart rate variability, skin temperature and sleep.

Flo, which has more than 80 million monthly active users, will also integrate its data into Google Health Coach, enabling users to receive personalised guidance that takes account of menstrual cycle changes alongside sleep, activity and recovery. Access to the coaching features will require a Google Health Premium subscription.

The collaboration is intended to provide a more comprehensive picture of women’s health across different life stages, from menstruation and pregnancy to perimenopause.

"Women have waited too long for technology that understands their bodies as well as it understands their steps. A.I. is about to change what is possible in women's health - but only if it's built with women in mind, not adapted for them afterward," said Dmitry Gurski, co-founder and CEO of Flo Health.

The first integrations are expected to become available in early 2027, with users able to opt in to sharing data between the two platforms.

The companies also plan to develop new products specifically designed for women, combining Flo’s algorithms and expertise in women’s health with Google’s wearable hardware and sensor technology.

Alongside product development, Google and Flo plan to collaborate on women’s health research, with potential areas of focus including perimenopause, polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS), pregnancy and postpartum recovery. Specific research projects have not yet been announced.

"We're making a significant investment in our commitment to women's health. By teaming up with Flo, together with our personalized coaching, research expertise and 24/7 tracking, we can help women understand their health in entirely new ways," said Rishi Chandra, GM Google Health.

Data privacy under scrutiny

Last year, both Flo Health and Google agreed to a settlement in a long-running privacy case where there were allegations of sharing reproductive health data without consent. The new partnership will involve sharing sensitive reproductive health and biometric data between the two platforms, placing data privacy back in focus.

Google said users will need to explicitly opt in before any information is transferred between the apps, with separate permissions required for different types of data and purposes.

Users will also be able to withdraw their consent at any time.

According to Google, Flo data shared with Google Health will not be used for advertising, sold to third parties or made available to other apps or developers through Google’s health platforms.

Berlin-based period-tracking company Clue has launched Get Care, a new initiative connecting users with specialist healthcare providers across contraception, fertility, diagnostics, metabolic health and mental health.

The free service, launched on 8 October in the UK, US and Germany, allows users to discover healthcare providers through the Clue app, with perimenopause and menopause care due to follow in November.

The move aims to address the gap between women using digital tools to understand their health and accessing appropriate healthcare services.

In a survey of almost 12,000 Clue users, two-thirds reported concerns about their menstrual health, with most managing symptoms independently. Nearly one in four new users said gathering information to share with a healthcare professional was an important reason for joining the app.

“Women are already using their Clue data to navigate the healthcare system and advocate for the care they need,” said Rhiannon White, chief executive of Clue.

“But women should not have to do all the work of connecting what they know about their bodies with the care available to them.”

Get Care brings together a network of specialist providers, including TwentyEight Health, Evaro, TeleClinic and inne for contraception; Plan Your Baby for fertility and conception; Hertility for hormone and fertility testing; Embla for weight and metabolic health; and Navicare for mental health support.

Evaro is expected to add weight management and perimenopause and menopause care to the platform in November.

Clue is also working with pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk to improve access to information and professional advice on women’s metabolic health, including during perimenopause.

The collaboration brings metabolic health into a platform traditionally associated with menstrual and reproductive health, reflecting growing recognition of the connections between reproductive, hormonal and metabolic conditions.

Expanding beyond period tracking

The launch marks a further expansion of Clue’s role beyond cycle tracking, as the company looks to connect its existing audience with a wider range of healthcare services.

Clue reports that more than 100 million people across 190 countries have used its app since launch.

The initiative could also create a new route to patients for specialist women’s health companies, many of which face significant challenges in customer acquisition and reaching women who could benefit from their services.

Clue says providers joining Get Care are vetted against criteria covering scientific evidence, regulatory clearance where required, and accessibility.

The launch builds on Clue’s wider ecosystem of partnerships and integrations, including with wearable technology providers Oura, Apple Watch, Garmin, WHOOP and Withings.

Further healthcare partners, services and international markets are planned.

Hello from London, where I’m spending the next couple of days at Women’s Health Week. Tomorrow I’ll be moderating a panel on the censorship of women’s health content online - do say hi if you see me!

🌟 In this week’s briefing:

• 💰 Biotia raises $9m to tackle the diagnostic gaps in recurrent UTIs

• 🏆 Rejoni wins FDA approval for device designed to prevent uterine scarring after surgery

• 📌 Digbi brings menopause care into its broader health platform

• 🏛️ Europe’s medicines regulator sets out 10 priorities to change how medicines are developed for women

Share your news: anna@futurefemhealth.com

But first…

Where did the money go in Q3?

In case you missed it, on Monday we released our Q3 funding analysis, tracking $456.2m in disclosed funding across 45 deals during July, August and September.

Pro members can now also download the complete Q3 funding tracker, with every deal we tracked and classified this quarter.

We use our classification framework to look separately at the health need a company addresses and how much of its business is focused on women’s health. That allows us to capture companies improving women’s health outcomes, whether or not they explicitly position themselves as women’s health companies.

In the full analysis:

• where the biggest Q3 cheques went

• what’s being built at early stage

• three Q3 stories across menstrual health, the microbiome and pelvic health

Read the Q3 funding analysis + download the tracker →

💰 Capital flows

📌 US: Biotia raises $9m to tackle the diagnostic gaps in recurrent UTIs. For women with recurrent or complicated UTIs, standard cultures don’t always identify what’s causing the infection - leaving some cycling through symptoms and treatment without clear answers. Biotia is using clinical metagenomics to identify pathogens that conventional testing can miss, and has now raised an oversubscribed $9m to expand its laboratory, pursue reimbursement and develop further women’s health diagnostics. The financing extends its previous Series A and takes total reported funding to $19.4m. (Continue reading: Biotia)

📌 NETHERLANDS: Flouria reaches €1.5m funding as it looks beyond its home market. After serving more than 1,000 women in its first year, Amsterdam-based digital clinic Flouria is preparing to take its hormonal health model into new European markets. It provides online specialist care across perimenopause, postpartum health and PMOS, from diagnosis through treatment and follow-up. New backing from Healthy.Capital brings total funding to €1.5m. (Continue reading: Flouria)

📌 UK: GLORIAH raises £600k to take vaginal dryness products into UK retail and the US. Edinburgh-based GLORIAH is building a consumer brand specifically around intimate health. The company has raised an oversubscribed £600k seed round as it prepares to launch on retailer Boots this month and enter the US later this year. Gabriel Investment Syndicate led the round. (Continue reading: GLORIAH)

📌 US: First $20m deployed from $100m push to halve maternal deaths. Less than a month after we covered Olivia and Tom Walton’s $100m commitment to US maternal health, the first money is moving. Arkansas and Kentucky will each receive $10m over five years to expand maternal healthcare, with a focus on rural access, workforce, home visiting, postpartum support and better maternal-health data. (Continue reading: Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies)

🌟 Industry moves and strategic shifts

📌 US: Digbi brings menopause care into its broader health platform. Specialist menopause platforms have helped establish the category, but their next competitors may not be other women’s health companies. Digbi Health, a telehealth platform providing metabolic, obesity, gastrointestinal and inflammatory care through more than 300 employers and health plans, has now added HRT to its offering. Women can now access HRT alongside metabolic care, while employers can add menopause through an existing relationship rather than buying another standalone solution. (Continue reading: Digbi Health)

📌 UK: SheMed expands beyond weight loss with PMOS care. When women-focused GLP-1 provider SheMed launched, one question was whether it would herald a new wave of VC-backed weight-management companies built specifically for women. Its latest move points to another possibility: weight loss may instead be the entry point into broader women’s metabolic health. SheMed has launched at-home screening and clinical support for PMOS (formerly PCOS), connecting hormonal testing with its existing metabolic and prescribing care. (Continued reading: SheMed)

📌 US: Rejoni wins FDA approval for device designed to prevent uterine scarring after surgery. Intrauterine adhesions - sometimes associated with Asherman syndrome - can develop after procedures including fibroid removal and can lead to infertility, pregnancy loss and menstrual problems. Rejoni’s Juveena hydrogel temporarily keeps the uterine walls separated as they heal, and has now secured FDA approval. We last covered Rejoni in June when it raised $25m specifically to prepare Juveena for approval and commercial launch. (Continue reading: Rejoni)

📌 GLOBAL: Bayer launches Menopause Advocacy and Policy Alliance. Bayer has launched a global alliance focused on improving menopause policy, care and workplace support, backed by a new assessment across 12 countries that found no market yet has a fully mature and coordinated approach. (Continue reading: Bayer)

📌 US: Oura postpones much-anticipated IPO amid market uncertainty. Smart-ring maker Oura has put its planned Nasdaq listing on hold, with CEO Tom Hale saying the company has the “luxury of choosing our moment”. The postponement delays what would have been a rare public-market test for a consumer health company with a predominantly female customer base. (Continue reading: Oura)

🩸 Research and women’s health news

📌 US: NIH awards up to $9.26m to build predictive models of how vaginal tissue changes across women’s lives. Part of the $21m hormone research initiative we covered recently, this Virginia Tech-led project will combine clinical data, experimental research and computational modelling to understand how hormonal changes reshape vaginal tissue from pregnancy and postpartum through menopause and ageing. Ultimately, researchers want to predict who may be at greater risk of pelvic health problems - opening the door to earlier prevention and more targeted treatment. (Continue reading: Virginia Tech)

📌 UK: £2.3m trial targets persistent endometriosis pain. The University of Aberdeen and NHS Grampian are leading a five-year NIHR-funded trial of a remotely delivered pain-management programme for women whose endometriosis pain persists despite surgery or medication. The study will test whether multidisciplinary support can offer a scalable option for patients who exhaust conventional treatment pathways. (Continue reading: BBC)

📄 Policy watch: risks and opportunities

📌 EUROPE: Regulator sets out 10 priorities to change how medicines are developed for women. Europe’s medicines regulator is preparing a new women’s health roadmap after bringing together regulators, industry, researchers and patients to identify where change is needed. Priorities include better representation of women in clinical trials, sex-disaggregated data, greater inclusion of pregnant and breastfeeding women, and considering women across different ages and life stages throughout a medicine’s development. The final roadmap, including concrete deliverables and timelines, is due by the end of 2026. (Continue reading: EMA)

📆 Save the date

📌 Women’s Health Europe Forum. Paris, France. November 27. A full day bringing together 200+ key players from across the European women’s health ecosystem.

👉 Register here

📌 Three ways to connect with SOSV’s deep tech community this November:

• The SOSV Deep Tech Summit (Nov 4–6 | Free | Virtual) will bring together 100+ iconic speakers and 5,000+ attendees to explore what’s next in AI for the Physical World, Human Health, and Climate Resilience. Hear from Nobel Laureate and CRISPR co-inventor Jennifer Doudna, Harvard longevity researcher David Sinclair, MIT’s Russ Tedrake, DCVC’s Matt Ocko and many more. Register Now

• The Deep Tech Co-Founder Search (Week of Nov 9 | Free | Virtual) will bring together 500+ founders, scientists, engineers, and operators looking for the right people to build deep tech startups with. Participate with or without an existing project. Register Now

• The Deep Tech VC–Founder Matchup (Week of Nov 16 | Free | Virtual) will connect 1,000+ attendees, including 500+ investors, through curated 1:1 meetings across climate, health, and other deep tech sectors. Register Now

That’s all for this week! If you’ve missed any previous briefings catch them all at futurefemhealth.com and do make sure to follow us on LinkedIn and you can connect with me directly on LinkedIn.

Anna

Today, I’m publishing the Q3 results along with my analysis of what the quarter tells us about the women’s health market.

Pro members can also download a copy of my tracker of every funding round I verified this quarter.

First up, the headlines:

• $456.2 million in disclosed funding into women’s health across 45 deals during July, August and September.

• Funding is down 40% from Q2 and 66% compared with Q3 last year.

• But, there were more deals this quarter. The 45 rounds in Q3 compare with 40 in Q2 and 38 in Q3 2025.

• Of the total funding, $246.1 million across 32 deals went into Pure Play women’s health companies - that is, companies wholly focused on health needs that are specific to women, disproportionately affect women, or affect women differently.

• And $210.1 million went into companies where women’s health isn’t all they do, but still represents a majority or material part of the business.

So the story for this quarter is that more companies raised money - just less of it. My analysis shows that the median disclosed round fell from $8 million in Q2 to $3.1 million in Q3.

And this wasn’t because Q3 was missing one or two enormous rounds. Even after removing the three largest deals from each quarter, Q3 funding was still down 52% quarter-on-quarter.

At the same time, we saw an uptick in early-stage deals, with more than half of Q3 deals at pre-seed or seed.

Read on for our full breakdown of Q3 funding, including:

• where the biggest Q3 cheques went

• what is being funded at early stage

• three category stories I’m watching

• early findings on who’s funding the pipeline

Below, FutureFemHealth Pro members can read the full analysis and download the complete Q3 tracker, including every deal and its classification.

Read more

Health data feels like the theme this week - from new efforts to standardise women’s health data, to using wearables in clinical care and even predicting when a migraine might strike. Plus, $33m for Tiny Health just two weeks after Evvy’s $40m Series B adds to a busy few weeks for the microbiome.

🌟 In this week’s briefing:

• 🏆 Tiny Health raises $33m as microbiome investment gathers pace

• 📌 FDA clears at-home maternal monitoring technology

• 💊 Bayer targets hot flashes in women with breast cancer

• 🔥 Could your migraine history predict tomorrow’s attack?

Share your news: anna@futurefemhealth.com

💰 Capital flows

📌 US: Tiny Health raises $33m Series B and launches $5m microbiome research programme. What started as gut microbiome testing for babies and mothers has now expanded into gut testing across the lifespan alongside vaginal microbiome testing, with research spanning menopause, IBD, GLP-1s and oncology drug response. The company has now raised an oversubscribed $33m Series B led by B Capital, bringing total funding to $46m, alongside a new $5m Microbiome Research Program. And coming just two weeks after Evvy’s $40m Series B, that’s $73m across two female-founded microbiome companies in a matter of weeks - enough to make the category feel particularly worth watching right now. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 US: Freyya raises pre-seed funding to bring data into pelvic floor care. Pelvic floor rehabilitation still relies heavily on patients learning how to perform exercises correctly, often with limited objective feedback. Freyya is developing a different approach: using biosensors to measure pelvic floor function and intra-abdominal pressure, with the aim of turning that data into more personalised treatment following childbirth, injury or hormonal changes. The company has now completed its product build and clinical testing, including a study at the University of Utah, and closed an oversubscribed pre-seed round led by Alamo Angels as it prepares for FDA submission and commercial-scale manufacturing. The amount was not disclosed. (Continue reading: Freyya)

📌 NORWAY: Oncoinvent raises $16.2m to target the cancer cells surgery can leave behind. Surgery can remove visible ovarian cancer, but microscopic cancer cells left in the abdominal cavity can contribute to recurrence. Norwegian biotech Oncoinvent is developing Radspherin to target that residual disease directly after surgery. The company has now raised NOK148.5m to fund its ongoing Phase II programme, regulatory work and preparations for Phase III development. (Continue reading: Allsci)

📌 US: Fate Therapeutics gets $15m boost as CAR-T moves deeper into autoimmune disease. The push to take cell therapies beyond cancer and into autoimmune disease continues. California’s regenerative medicine agency CIRM has awarded Fate Therapeutics $15m to support a Phase II trial of its off-the-shelf CAR-T therapy in lupus nephritis - a serious complication of lupus, which disproportionately affects women. Unlike conventional CAR-T therapies, the treatment is designed to be readily available rather than manufactured individually for each patient. (Continue reading: Fate Therapeutics)

🌟 Industry moves and strategic shifts

📌 US: Bayer gets Priority Review for non-hormonal hot flash treatment in breast cancer. Managing menopause symptoms can be especially difficult for women being treated for hormone-sensitive breast cancer, where hormone therapy may not be appropriate. The FDA has now granted Priority Review to Bayer’s Lynkuet for moderate-to-severe hot flashes caused by endocrine therapy in HR-positive breast cancer. If approved, it would give women in this group another option for managing one of the most common side effects of their treatment. (Continue reading: Bayer)

📌 US: Marani Health gets FDA clearance to move maternal monitoring into the home. Fetal and maternal monitoring has traditionally meant a trip to hospital or clinic. The FDA has cleared Marani Health’s M•care System and M•wrap wearable, which captures fetal and maternal heart signals and allows clinicians to review them remotely. A commercial launch is planned for 2027, as more of the monitoring that has traditionally happened in hospitals and clinics starts to become possible at home. (Continue reading: Medical Device Network)

📌 US: My Normative expands Persons Project to tackle how women’s health data is recorded and shared. Six months after launch, the Persons Project initiative has grown from nine partners to more than 30 organisations across seven countries - and is moving into the practical work of developing new data standards. One potential use is allowing information already collected through period-tracking apps and wearables to move into healthcare systems in a consistent format, rather than remaining trapped in separate platforms. The project is also developing an open-access framework to create a common language for women’s health data, making information easier to understand and combine even when organisations have collected it differently. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 US/FINLAND: Xella Health brings ŌURA data into clinical women’s health platform. 2026 has been the year that’s confirmed wearable data is moving beyond consumer tracking and further into clinical care. Xella Health will integrate ŌURA data including sleep, temperature, resting heart rate, HRV and activity with its own diagnostics and physician-led women’s health platform. We’re collecting more health data than ever through consumer wearables - the challenge now is making it useful to clinicians. (Continue reading: Xella Health)

📌 CANADA/GLOBAL: Flora Fertility and Clue connect fertility tracking with fertility insurance. Period tracking and fertility financing are usually encountered at very different points in the reproductive health journey. A new partnership between Clue and Flora Fertility starts to bring the two together: Clue will introduce users to Flora’s individually owned fertility insurance, while Flora policyholders will receive Clue Plus access. It’s a relatively small partnership, but an interesting link between two parts of the fertility journey that have usually sat quite separately. (Continue reading: Flora Fertility)

🩸 Research and women’s health news

📌 FINLAND: Women’s health conditions estimated to cost economy €15.9bn a year. A new Cost of Illness study from Eir Accelerator and Suncoast Ventures has modelled the economic burden of 50 conditions that affect women solely, disproportionately or differently - putting the annual cost at €15.9bn, equivalent to around €5,580 per woman in Finland. Almost half of the burden sits outside the healthcare system through sickness absence, reduced work capacity and wider employer costs. Mental and neurological conditions together with pelvic and reproductive health account for around 68% of the total modelled cost. (Continue reading: Eir Accelerator / Suncoast Ventures)

📌 GLOBAL: Could your last month of headaches help predict tomorrow’s migraine? A machine-learning study using data from more than 53,000 users of Theranica’s Nerivio migraine app suggests next-day migraine risk may be predictable. The best-performing model correctly identified 80% of migraine days, with 91% of days it flagged as migraine days actually followed by an attack. But perhaps more interesting was what drove the prediction: a person’s headache severity and migraine patterns over the previous month were far more important than current symptoms or weather. It’s another interesting example of how data people are already collecting about their health could start to become useful for looking ahead, rather than simply tracking what has already happened. (Continue reading: Neurology Open Access)

📌 GLOBAL: $15m research push to understand rising breast cancer rates in younger women. Estée Lauder is committing $15m to a new five-year global research initiative with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation focused on rising breast cancer incidence among younger women. Researchers will investigate what is driving the increase - spanning biology and genetics to environmental factors - as well as opportunities to improve prevention, earlier detection and treatment. (Continue reading: Cosmetics Business)

📆 Save the date

📌 Registration is now open for the Women’s Health Europe Forum

The Women’s Health Europe Forum, organized by Femtech France, is now open for registration ahead of its inaugural edition on November 27 in Paris. The day will bring together 200+ key players from across the European women’s health ecosystem. Two calls for applications are also live for startups specifically: the Startup Pitch, offering 10 startups a spot on the main stage, and two Corporate Challenges with PiLeJe and Garmin Health, each selecting one startup to collaborate directly with the partner.

👉 Register here

That’s all for this week! If you’ve missed any previous briefings catch them all at futurefemhealth.com and do make sure to follow us on LinkedIn and you can connect with me directly on LinkedIn.

Anna

Tiny Health has raised $33m in Series B funding to expand its gut and vaginal microbiome testing, research and clinical platform, alongside launching a new $5m research programme.

The US company, which started with gut microbiome testing for babies and mothers, now offers gut testing across the lifespan as well as vaginal microbiome testing.

The oversubscribed round was led by B Capital and brings Tiny Health’s total funding to $46m. Existing investors Spero Ventures, The Venture City and Overwater Ventures participated, alongside new investors including Black Opal Ventures, Denver Ventures, Pave Health Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Gaingels and Pari Passu Ventures.

The funding will support further clinical research and interventional studies, education for healthcare practitioners and expansion of Powered by Tiny, the company’s B2B platform.

Alongside the raise, Tiny Health has committed $5m to a new Microbiome Research Program, through which researchers, clinicians and scientific partners will be able to use its testing, data and research capabilities.

“What started as a solution for my own family has become the infrastructure for an entire industry,” said founder and CEO Cheryl Sew Hoy.

“This Series B round propels microbiome science as the foundational layer for the next frontier of medicine.”

From babies to the whole lifespan

Founded in 2020 and launched in 2022, Tiny Health initially focused on the first 1,000 days of life, when the gut microbiome is particularly malleable, launching gut microbiome testing for babies alongside gut and vaginal testing for mothers.

Since then, adult testing has now overtaken paediatric testing, while Tiny Health is expanding its research into areas including inflammatory bowel disease, menopause, GLP-1s and oncology drug response.

The company says it has built a longitudinal dataset of nearly 200,000 microbiome profiles and now works with more than 6,000 healthcare practitioners. Its B2B platform, Powered by Tiny, grew four-fold last year, with partners spanning healthcare and precision medicine.

It is also developing TinyAI, trained on its proprietary dataset to provide personalised guidance based on users’ microbiome results.

Alongside scale, Tiny Health is trying to build evidence for what can actually be done with microbiome information.

“Tiny Health believes the next breakthroughs in microbiome science will come from bringing more researchers and institutions into the field,” said Kimberley Sukhum, PhD, chief science officer.

“This investment will help generate new evidence and foster collaborations across the scientific community.”

A randomised controlled trial published in Pediatric Allergy and Immunology last year found that a targeted microbiome programme reduced the odds of eczema among participating babies born by C-section. Tiny Health says a second RCT is now underway.

This push towards clinical evidence is particularly relevant to its women’s health work. Tiny Health already offers vaginal microbiome testing, while its wider research programme is moving into menopause and other areas where the microbiome could potentially provide new information about health and treatment.

The raise also comes just two weeks after Evvy secured a $40m Series B to expand its work around the vaginal microbiome, including a deeper push into fertility and IVF.

The companies have different focuses - Tiny Health spans the gut and vaginal microbiomes across the lifespan, while Evvy is specifically focused on vaginal health - but both are now building beyond consumer testing into large longitudinal datasets, research and clinical applications.

The activity reflects a broader shift in the vaginal microbiome market, as companies move beyond simply identifying which microbes are present towards understanding how that information could inform diagnosis, treatment and care.

You might like to read:

It is hardly news that women’s health has a research and data problem. Female biology and many conditions that disproportionately or differently affect women remain understudied, while the data that does exist is often incomplete, fragmented or not designed to answer the questions researchers are now asking.

But what feels much newer to me is the acceleration I’ve noticed recently in ideas and solutions - and the number of individuals and organisations across the ecosystem now trying to build the missing foundations.

This goes beyond the usual calls to close the data gap by doing more research involving women. Instead, what I’m seeing is a growing focus on research infrastructure - i.e, what needs to sit underneath that research in the first place. Do we have the right data? Does it contain the detail researchers actually need? Can different datasets work together? And do researchers and companies have the tools, standards and models they need to make sense of it?

It feels like we’ve reached something of a crunch point and more and more people across the ecosystem are coming to variations of the same conclusion. As ‘femtech’ moves into deeper tech, from drug discovery and precision diagnostics to advanced biosensors and AI, the weak foundations created by decades of under-research become harder to work around.

And fixing those weak foundations requires some creative thinking.

Building what is missing

One of the newest proposals comes from AthenaDAO founder Laura Minquini.

Her initiative, AthenaBIO, has just released a new thesis proposing a five-year programme focused initially on ovarian biology.

What’s interesting is how the thesis proposes to study the ovary. Instead of funding more individual research projects, the idea is to identiy around 15 leading laboratories already working on different parts of ovarian biology, and coordinate their work around some of the things the field is collectively missing. The labs would be funded to generate data and tools using common approaches, with the results becoming shared resources that other researchers can use rather than remaining within individual labs.

AthenaBIO hopes this would produce a reference map showing how the ovary changes across a woman’s lifetime; better biological markers for measuring ovarian function and ageing; agreed ways for researchers to measure and compare results across studies; and better models for testing potential new drugs and interventions.

The key is the coordination - making sure the research produces data and tools that can be shared and used across the wider field.

And for Laura, AI makes this work more urgent, not less. We know that AI can interrogate existing data in entirely new ways, but it can't compensate for data that was never collected, missing information or research that was never done.

So - all very important and compelling stuff. Except there’s just one obvious question….

Read more

Six months after launching the Persons Project, Canadian women’s health research platform My Normative is expanding its initiative from nine founding partners to more than 30 organisations across seven countries.

The Persons Project launched earlier this year exploring how organisations that collect and use women’s health data in different ways could work together to improve research.

The next phase moves into some of the practical work needed to make that happen, including developing standards for how women’s health data is recorded and shared between different systems.

Founder Danika Kelly says one of the biggest lessons from the first six months has been understanding the different layers that determine how health data is recorded.

“There are technical data standards like Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) - which are predominantly for electronic medical records - that lack standardisation in many areas of women’s health,” Danika told FutureFemHealth.

“There are accredited standards like those developed by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) or the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which are often tied to regulatory and industry practices that also frequently lack robustness in women’s health.”

There is also a third layer, she says: informal industry standards, or simply “the way things have been done”.

Formal standards needed

My Normative is now working with the Canadian Standards Association to identify gaps in formal women’s health standards, while also contributing to work on how menstrual health data should be structured so it can be consistently understood and exchanged between digital health products and electronic medical records.

Potential applications are broad-ranging and practical. A period-tracking app, for example, might hold years of information about someone’s cycle dates, duration and symptoms that would never be manually entered into a medical record by a doctor.

Common standards could eventually allow reliable data collected through apps and devices to move into healthcare systems in a consistent format.

The project is also developing an open-access framework creating a common language for women’s health data, making it easier to understand and combine information even when different organisations have collected or recorded it differently.

My Normative also plans to take the work to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and advocate for broader adoption of the standards across the Commonwealth’s 56 member states. Four are already represented in the project.

The longer-term goal is what My Normative describes as greater “data liquidity”: making it easier for reliable women’s health information to be understood and used across different organisations, technologies and healthcare systems.

“This is just the beginning,” said Kelly. “The potential scale and impact of The Persons Project is generational.”

It’s another bumper week for women’s health investment - from nine-figure biotech rounds to a whopping $1.1bn investment in women’s health infrastructure.

🌟 In this week’s briefing:

• 🏆 $1.1bn gift will create Oregon’s first dedicated women’s health hospital

• 🧪 Teal Health raises $22m to expand at-home HPV screening

• 🩺 Blair Health raises CAD $4.24m to scale specialist-designed menopause care

• 🇪🇺 European Parliament endorses dedicated women’s health funding in next EU budget

Share your news: anna@futurefemhealth.com

🦠 New on FFH Pro: What comes after the vaginal microbiome test?

After Evvy’s $40m Series B last week, our latest analysis looks at the bigger vaginal microbiome opportunity - and the shift from consumer testing towards clinical care.

Inside: the companies, evidence and investment shaping the market.

And, crucially: what happens after the test - and what needs to change for vaginal microbiome testing to become part of routine healthcare?

Read the full analysis on FFH Pro →

💰 Capital flows

📌 US: Teal Health raises $22m Series A to expand at-home HPV screening. At-home HPV screening could help close one of the biggest gaps in cervical cancer prevention: reaching women who are overdue or not engaging with traditional screening. Teal Health says 59% of women using its FDA-authorised self-collection service are underscreened, with the new Series A set to expand access through insurers, health systems, employers and providers. A major policy tailwind is coming in January 2027 too, when new federal guidelines will require most US health plans to cover self-collection for cervical cancer screening without cost-sharing. The round was led by .406 Ventures, with Japan’s MPower Partners joining as a new investor — its third women’s health-related investment this month — alongside existing backers Emerson Collective, Forerunner, Labcorp and Serena Ventures. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 CANADA: Blair Health raises CAD $4.24m to scale specialist women’s health model. Starting with menopause, where women in Canada can wait up to two years to see a specialist, Blair is taking a different approach to the specialist access problem: encoding specialist-designed assessments, treatment protocols and escalation pathways into software that allows family physicians and nurse practitioners to deliver the care. Blair says its menopause pathway can be taught to a provider in under four hours, and it is now applying the same infrastructure to pelvic health and urology, as well as clinical nutrition and weight management. More than 2,300 women have signed up since its May 2025 launch, while its employer channel grew to around half of revenue in H1 2026. The pre-seed round was co-led by BDC’s Thrive Venture Fund, Accelia Capital and Ogaei Investments, with Ontario Centre of Innovation and angels participating. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 US: Sling Therapeutics raises $123m for Phase III thyroid eye disease drug. This Series C takes Sling into late-stage development of linsitinib, a potential first oral treatment for thyroid eye disease (TED), a serious autoimmune condition that predominantly affects women and commonly occurs alongside Graves’ disease. If successful, the drug could offer a more convenient treatment option for a condition currently treated with approaches including IV therapy and surgery. Forbion led the round, with TPG Life Sciences Innovations and Sectoral Asset Management participating. (Continue reading: Sling Therapeutics)

📌 US: Circle Pharma raises $92.5m to advance new breast cancer drug. This oversubscribed Series E will take Circle’s new oral treatment for ER-positive breast cancer into its first clinical trial in early 2027. The drug is designed to offer a new approach for patients whose cancer has progressed despite existing treatments, targeting a pathway that has historically been difficult to drug directly. The Column Group led the round and Eli Lilly. (Continue reading: Circle Pharma)

📌 CANADA: Bird&Be raises $13m to expand fertility testing and supplements. Fertility products are moving further beyond specialist clinics, with Bird&Be now selling its female and male reproductive health range across nearly 1,000 Ulta Beauty stores alongside growing clinical distribution. The company says it reached eight-figure revenues within three years, with the new funding supporting R&D, product development and further expansion. The undisclosed-stage round was led by BDC’s Thrive Venture Fund and BFG Partners. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

Also funded in the past week…..

Norway’s Induvita raised NOK 7.5m to commercialise its redesigned vaginal speculum, Vega, and continue development of its induction-of-labour catheter; Denmark’s Sylvia Health secured €560k through BioInnovation Institute’s Venture Lab to advance its pelvic organ prolapse device towards manufacturing and regulatory submission; France’s Herapreg raised €215k to develop new devices targeting endometriosis and dysmenorrhoea; and China’s Medicovestor raised several million RMB to advance an antibody pipeline that includes a potential new treatment approach for endometriosis.

🌟 Industry moves and strategic shifts

📌 GLOBAL: PwC puts fertility and reproductive health market at up to $45bn by 2030. It’s a trend we’ve been tracking at FutureFemHealth and now new analysis from PwC highlights how the fertility market is expanding beyond IVF into fertility testing and preservation, diagnostics, tech-enabled care and new therapeutics. PwC estimates the market at $25–35bn today, growing 6–8% annually, with more than $14bn invested between 2020 and 2025. (Continue reading: PwC)

📌 US: Walmart targets maternal health in rural pharmacy pilot. Pharmacists will act as “Health Ambassadors” at five stores, providing coaching and connecting customers with services across maternal health, diabetes and weight management. With 4,000 Walmart stores in medically underserved areas and 90% of the US population living within 10 miles of a Walmart or Sam’s Club, the pilot shows the potential for retailers to use their existing footprint to plug gaps in healthcare access. (Continue reading: Fierce Healthcare)

📌 US: Sexual wellness brand Maude to enter 600+ Target Beauty Studios and nearly 400 Ulta Beauty stores. This expansion is another sign of intimate and sexual health moving deeper into mainstream beauty and wellness retail. Ulta has already added brands including Unbound, Crave, Smile Makers, Stripes and Playground this year, and says wellness could become its next $1bn category. Maude, which has raised around $13m but no external capital for almost four years, is now approaching profitability. (Continue reading: Beauty Independent)

🩸 Research and women’s health news

📌 US: $1.1bn gift will create Oregon’s first dedicated women’s health hospital. Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife Penny Knight have committed a whopping $1.1bn to US not-for-profit health system Providence to fund the new Portland hospital and wider women’s health services - a huge investment in women’s health infrastructure. Rather than focusing primarily on maternity, this new hospital will be based around a broader model of women’s health spanning pregnancy, gynaecology and menopause alongside cardiovascular care, prevention and diagnostics. (Continue reading: AP News)

📌 UAE: Abu Dhabi launches 2030 reproductive health programme. Abu Dhabi is making a major play to become a global reproductive health hub - including an ambitious goal to increase its IVF success rates from 59% to 80%(!). It’s launching a programme spanning preconception and genetic screening, fertility treatment, IVF and fertility preservation, alongside research and innovation. The ecosystem brings together 2,000+ experts across 250+ facilities and has established a Global Reproductive Health Advisory Council to help shape research priorities and standards. (Continue reading: Abu Dhabi media office)

📄 Policy watch: risks and opportunities

📌 EU: European Parliament backs report calling for dedicated women’s health funding in next EU budget. This vote comes as negotiations get underway around the EU’s 2028–34 budget, potentially putting women’s health into the fight over where billions in future research funding goes. The report that MEPs endorsed recommends explicitly earmarking women’s health funding within major EU research and innovation programmes, alongside better representation in clinical trials, more sex-disaggregated data and greater consideration of sex and gender across research and care. While non-binding, it gives Parliament a clearer position as the next funding framework is negotiated. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 US: First Menopause Capitol Hill Day brings 125+ advocates to Washington. Advocates from 29 states have met lawmakers to push for federal action on menopause research, care, coverage and workplace support. It follows last week’s first bipartisan congressional hearing on menopause, as the issue gains further traction in federal policy. (Continue reading: Women’s Health Advocates)

📌 UK: NICE reverses decision on Enhertu for advanced breast cancer. Around 1,000 women a year could gain access to Enhertu on the NHS in England after NICE reversed its 2024 rejection of the drug for HER2-low advanced breast cancer. The decision follows a new commercial agreement and changes to NICE’s cost-effectiveness framework — making this an important early test of the UK’s new approach to assessing the value for money of medicines. (Continue reading: Pharmacy Biz)

📆 Save the date

📌 SAN FRANCISCO: Forward: Women’s Health Summit, November 4. TechThrive Ventures’ third FORWARD Women’s Health Summit returns with Silicon Valley Bank, bringing together leading investors and ecosystem builders to discuss the future of women’s health.

🎟️ Secure your ticket

That’s all for this week! If you’ve missed any previous briefings catch them all at futurefemhealth.com and do make sure to follow us on LinkedIn and you can connect with me directly on LinkedIn.

Anna

Canadian fertility brand Bird&Be has raised $13 million to expand its product range and grow its retail and clinical distribution.

The Toronto-based company provides reproductive health products for both women and men, spanning preconception, pregnancy and postpartum care. Its range includes supplements, at-home sperm tests and ovarian reserve screening, with the company positioning itself around making fertility support available earlier and outside specialist clinics.

The round was led by BDC Thrive and BFG Partners, with participation from BAM Ventures, Founder Collective, Rejuvenation Ventures and HSR Ventures. Bird&Be has not disclosed a funding stage.

“We started Bird&Be because my co-founder Breanna Hughes and I didn’t have the support we needed navigating PMOS and pregnancy loss ourselves,” said Samantha Diamond, co-founder and CEO.

“Every product we make helps our customers and community feel educated and in control.”

Taking fertility care into mainstream retail

Bird&Be has pushed fertility products beyond the traditional clinic and direct-to-consumer model, as reproductive healthcare continues to face access gaps.

The company launched in 300 Ulta Beauty stores in September 2025 before expanding to nearly 1,000 locations by spring 2026, becoming what it says is the first fertility brand to place male and female fertility products side by side in a national beauty retailer. It has also partnered with Mandell’s Clinical Pharmacy to reach fertility patients across all 50 US states.

The approach also deliberately brings men into a fertility market that has traditionally focused heavily on women. Male factors are involved in up to half of infertility cases, according to figures cited by the company.

“We intentionally created a brand that would bring men into the fertility narrative as well, giving them the supplements and tools to care for their own reproductive health and grow their families,” Samantha said.

Bird&Be has grown into an eight-figure business in its first three years, with close to 100% year-on-year growth and subscriptions accounting for 75% of revenue. Its clinician referral channel has grown 200% over the past year, with more than 10% of customers now coming through a healthcare provider recommendation.

The company also provides products targeting PMOS, formerly known as PCOS, alongside prenatal, pregnancy and postpartum supplements. Its supplements are third-party tested and formulated with fertility doctors, OB-GYNs and naturopathic specialists.

Mona Minhas, managing partner of BDC Thrive Venture Fund, said Bird&Be was building at “the intersection of women’s health, consumer health, and preventative care”, addressing what the investor sees as a large underserved market.

The new funding will be used for research and clinical studies, product development, continued retail expansion and further growth of Bird&Be’s clinical distribution channel.

Teal Health has raised $22m in Series A funding to expand access to its FDA-authorised at-home HPV self-collection device for cervical cancer screening across the US.

The San Francisco-based company will use the funding to grow partnerships with insurers, health systems, employers and healthcare providers, as it prepares for broader insurance coverage of self-collected HPV screening from January 2027. The round takes Teal’s total funding to $45m.

The funding will also support further hiring across Teal’s clinical, commercial, technology and operational teams as it scales to serve more women and partners.

“We designed Teal for all women, whether they are behind on their screening or coming due,” said co-founder and chief executive Kara Egan.

“Screening is just too difficult today, whether that is finding an appointment, the time in your day to attend, or the physical discomfort.”

The Series A was led by .406 Ventures, a Boston-based venture capital firm investing in early-stage technology and healthcare companies. Existing investors Emerson Collective, Forerunner, Labcorp Venture Fund and Serena Ventures also participated. Japan’s MPower Partners joined as a new investor, marking its third investment in a women’s health-related company this month, following backing for Sjögren’s drug developer SiccaNova and maternal and postpartum care company Josan-she’s.

Reaching the underscreened

Almost all cervical cancers are caused by persistent infection with high-risk HPV, making screening one of the key reasons the disease is considered largely preventable.

Teal Health’s expansion could be particularly significant for women who are not being reached by existing screening programmes. Teal says 59% of women choosing its service are underscreened, while nearly one in three US women overall is not up to date with cervical cancer screening.

The Teal Wand allows women to collect their own sample for HPV testing at home, without a speculum or an in-person appointment. The service combines home collection with telehealth, digital results and support accessing follow-up care where needed, potentially removing some of the practical and physical barriers associated with conventional screening.

Since receiving FDA authorisation in 2025, Teal says it has screened thousands of women across the US. The company has also been incorporated into national screening guidelines and is working with health systems, providers, employers and payers to make the test available through existing healthcare and benefits channels.

The latest funding will support further expansion of those partnerships, as well as direct-purchase options for individuals and organisations. A significant tailwind for Teal Health is new federal guidelines taking effect in January 2027, which will require most US health plans to cover self-collection for cervical cancer screening without cost-sharing, creating a potential route for at-home testing to move beyond early adopters and into routine preventive care.

Canadian women’s health company Blair Health has raised CAD$4.24 million in pre-seed funding to expand a care model first developed to tackle long waits for menopause specialists into pelvic health, urology and weight management.

The Toronto-based company has built technology that translates specialist-designed assessments, treatment protocols and escalation pathways into software that can be used by family physicians and nurse practitioners, with specialists providing oversight for more complex cases.

The oversubscribed round, Blair’s first institutional financing, brings its total funding to CAD $4.5 million and will support expansion across Canada and the US. The round was co-led by BDC’s Thrive Venture Fund, Accelia Capital and Ogaei Investments, with participation from Ontario Centre of Innovation and angel investors.

“The fundamental problem in healthcare today is that the traditional model for delivering specialist care doesn’t scale,” said Madge Rumman, co-founder and CEO of Blair Health.

“We’ve spent the last year proving that specialist knowledge can be encoded into technology without removing the clinician from care, and that the same architecture can be applied across specialties.”

Addressing long waiting lists for specialist care

Blair began with menopause, where it says women in Canada can wait up to two years for a specialist appointment. Its menopause pathway was developed with co-founder and chief medical officer Dr Lindsay Shirreff, an obstetrician-gynaecologist and one of a small number of fellowship-trained menopause subspecialists practising in Canada.

Rather than replacing clinicians with a digital service, Blair’s model is designed to enable generalist providers to deliver care using specialist-developed clinical pathways. Its software incorporates assessment logic, guideline-informed treatment protocols, escalation triggers and follow-up pathways, while patients can track symptoms between appointments and message their provider.

Blair says its menopause pathway has achieved 98.7% clinical accuracy against its own clinical dataset, while a provider can be trained to deliver it in under four hours.

The company is now applying the same model beyond menopause. It has developed pathways in urology and pelvic health, led by urologist Dr Sarah Peltz, and clinical nutrition and weight management, led by gastroenterologist and obesity medicine physician Dr Pooja Singhal, all running on the same underlying technology.

More than 2,300 women have signed up since Blair launched direct-to-consumer in May 2025. It now operates across every Canadian province and six US states, with between 55% and 65% of steady-state visits involving follow-up care rather than one-off consultations.

Blair is also expanding through employers. Canadian pilots across professional services, hospitality and financial services have converted into recurring annual contracts, with the employer channel growing from close to zero to around half of the company’s revenue in the first half of 2026.

The funding will be used to accelerate engineering and product development, grow Blair’s clinical operations and provider network, expand its employer business in Canada and the US, and work with Canadian public-sector health systems.

The European Parliament has backed a new report that includes calls for dedicated women’s health funding within the EU’s next major research and innovation programmes, as negotiations over Europe’s 2028–34 budget take shape.

MEPs adopted the report on gender inequalities in health on 16 September, calling on the European Commission to prioritise earmarked funding for women’s health research under the next Horizon Europe programme, known as FP10, and the proposed European Competitiveness Fund.

The report, led by Irish MEP Billy Kelleher, also calls for greater consideration of sex and gender in medical research, better representation of women in clinical trials and improved collection of sex-disaggregated health data.

EU budget cycle set to renew

The funding recommendation is particularly significant and timely as the EU determines its spending priorities for the next seven-year budget cycle.

The European Commission has proposed a €175 billion budget for Horizon Europe for 2028–34 to support innovation and research. Alongside it, the proposed European Competitiveness Fund is intended to support strategic technologies and companies from research through to commercialisation and scale, with health and biotech among its priority areas.

Parliament’s report calls for women’s health to be explicitly prioritised within these future funding programmes, rather than relying solely on broader health and life sciences funding.

It marks the latest development in a growing push for a more coordinated European approach to women’s health.

In September 2025, we reported that the European Policy Centre called for a dedicated EU Women’s Health Strategy, arguing that fragmented national approaches were limiting progress in research, healthcare and innovation.

Earlier this year, a coalition of more than 50 organisations took that push a step further, presenting a detailed blueprint for a future EU Women’s Health Strategy at the European Parliament. The proposals included aligning women’s health with future EU funding frameworks and the next Multiannual Financial Framework.

The latest report moves the issue further into the EU’s institutional agenda, with Parliament itself now formally backing greater investment.

However, the vote does not itself create a dedicated women’s health fund or allocate money as the report is non-binding. The details of the EU’s next long-term budget and research programmes will be negotiated between European institutions.

For women’s health, attention will now turn to whether Parliament’s recommendations translate into dedicated funding as Europe’s next research and innovation budgets are agreed.

Digital restrictions on women’s health content are continuing to carry a business cost, with 43% of organisations surveyed for new research reporting lost revenue and almost six in ten losing time trying to resolve platform issues.

One women’s health company attributed £2.3m in lost annual revenue to the removal of advertising tracking and targeting tools, despite underlying demand for its services growing by more than 6%. Its online awareness fell by 70%.

The findings come from Censorship Revealed: One Year On, a new report from CensHERship, published in partnership with The Case For Her. Its ongoing global dataset now covers 187 respondents across more than 20 countries and more than 5,000 datapoints, spanning health companies, clinical providers, charities, educators and creators.

“Women’s health is a growing sector, but digital systems critical to business have not kept pace,” said Anna O’Sullivan, co-founder of CensHERship.

“Companies should be able to talk accurately about pregnancy, periods, fertility, menopause, pelvic health and more without being incorrectly classified as sexual or inappropriate. When that affects their ability to advertise, reach customers or describe their products, there is a very real business cost.”

High reports of censorship and digital suppression

The overall prevalence of reported censorship has barely moved: 96% of respondents experienced censorship or suppression in the previous 12 months, compared with 95% in 2025. More than a third experienced ten or more incidents.

But how organisations are responding has changed. 65% now say they self-censor, up from 53% last year, including changing words or images, using vague language or avoiding topics altogether because of concerns about platform restrictions.

“The problem of women’s health censorship has not gone away, but what is particularly concerning is that nearly two thirds of organisations are now changing how they communicate in response,” said Clio Wood, co-founder of CensHERship.

“Women should be able to find clear and accurate information about their bodies online, and organisations should be able to provide it.”

Examples documented in the report include a pelvic health company having a Meta advert for a prolapse product blocked because it used the word “kegels”, and a creator removing “uterus” from her Instagram name following repeated reach restrictions. Pregnancy pillow brand BellaMoon reported spending more than £100,000 on ineffective marketing after its pregnancy support pillow was classified as a medical device, eventually removing the word “pregnancy” from its website as it tried to navigate advertising restrictions.

Across the dataset, 78% had content flagged as inappropriate, 63% experienced restricted reach, 58% had content removed and 45% had an advert rejected.

Appealing those decisions is another challenge. 88% of respondents who rated their experience of resolving issues were dissatisfied or extremely dissatisfied, while just 1.2% were satisfied. Twenty-two respondents had made more than 15 attempts to resolve an issue.

There have been signs of progress. Over the past year, the issue has received greater parliamentary and regulatory scrutiny, while CensHERship has engaged with Meta and TikTok and supported organisations using new appeal routes under the EU Digital Services Act. The House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee cited its evidence in a March report calling for platforms to be held accountable for inappropriate shadowbanning of women’s health content.

CensHERship is calling for better moderation that distinguishes legitimate health information from sexual or adult content, greater transparency around how health content is classified and more responsive appeal mechanisms when decisions are wrong.

Hello and welcome to FutureFemHealth Pro - our deeper analysis on the women’s health market.

As always, free subscribers receive a preview of this week’s analysis. Upgrade below to read the full article.

What if checking the vaginal microbiome became a routine part of women’s healthcare?

Priyanka Jain thinks women could eventually do it once or twice a year.

“We’re building what I would describe as the new age Pap smear,” the Evvy co-founder told me.

That sounds ambitious for a category that, until quite recently, has sat mainly in the consumer testing and wellness world - and is still surrounded by plenty of stigma and taboo.

But Evvy’s $40m Series B this week made me wonder how far away from that future the market actually is.

The company has now served more than 100,000 patients. Women have shown they will pay to understand their vaginal health. Investors are now putting significant institutional capital behind companies building in it. And, importantly, companies are starting to build the clinical evidence that could make vaginal microbiome data more useful to healthcare too.

The vaginal microbiome is the community of bacteria and other microorganisms living in the vagina. Its composition matters because a healthy vaginal microbiome is protective, while disruption has been associated with common conditions such as bacterial vaginosis and with wider reproductive and gynaecological health, including fertility.

Until now, women have mainly sought out tests themselves to get answers to recurrent BV, thrush or other symptoms - especially when those answers haven’t been easy to get elsewhere.

But we’re starting to understand that the microbiome could tell us much more than that too. And across the market, companies are starting to work out what you can actually do with that information.

Last week, Good Clean Clinical Care launched a model combining microbiome testing with specialist care and personalised treatments. Earlier this year, Juno Bio opened a CLIA-certified lab after raising $3.8m. And Daye has been combining tampon-based sample collection with testing across the vaginal microbiome, HPV and STIs.

Then you have companies including Freya Biosciences, Osel and Gedea Biotech developing treatments that act on the vaginal microbiome.

So what comes next?

If the first wave of this market was about giving women a way to measure their vaginal microbiome, the next question is what happens when that information starts becoming part of healthcare.

In this week’s FutureFemHealth Pro, I’m looking at where the vaginal microbiome market goes next:

• More than $160m in disclosed investment and grant funding since 2022 - and where it’s going

• How companies are moving beyond consumer testing into diagnostics, clinical care and therapeutics - and what it would take to become part of routine healthcare

• Where the real value could sit if testing itself is only the starting point

Read more