$1m for the wearable smart ring - you'll barely have to wear
$1m for the wearable smart ring - you'll barely have to wear
The Australian-founded Basal Body Ring from Femtek has secured $1m of investment
The Australian-founded Basal Body Ring, has just secured $1m of seed investment, with a surprising point of difference.
Founder Olivia Orchowski designed her cycle tracking ring so that you only need wear it to bed rather than during the day.
“There’s women who have a lot of fertility issues, women who have issues conceiving or have had losses,” she told Smart Company.
Therefore being seen with a wearable and being asked what it’s for or why you’ve stopped wearing it “may not be something a lot of women actually want to publicly disclose”.
The design also allows for reduced need for battery charging, since users can charge when not wearing.
An antidote to male-centric wearable designs
Olivia founded Australian-based Femtek in 2020 . She wanted a smart wearable that would be an antidote to the male-centric designs she was seeing. Her smart ring is instead specifically tailored to track cycles and measures the basal body temperature, heart rate and heart rate variability.
It’s also compatible for those with irregular cycles, PCOS and endometriosis.
“Everything we have created from the ground up is with women in mind,” she said.
Priced at $349 AUD and shipping worldwide, the product does not include a subscription fee - a nod to the fact women already face higher healthcare costs.
FemTek Basal Body Ring vs Movano’s Evie Ring
The Basal Body Ring is one of just two smart ring wearables on the market specifically designed for women.
The other is Movano’s Evie Ring which finally launched a few months ago and is billed as the world’s first smart ring for women.
The Evie Ring too does not have a subscription attached to it.
$1m investment raised
Olivia has now just announced a successful $1m raise led by Arcanys Ventures and Techstars - although the round is not yet closed and Femtek is continuing its raise.
The road to investment has not been without challenges:
“[It] has been gruelling, and the aversion investors have to anything [that’s not] B2B SaaS has been nothing short of disheartening at the best of times,” she wrote.
“I am so thrilled to say that we have pulled it together through a combination of [..] angels and investors who aren't scared of hardware, who are excited by our mission, and want to see Femtek come into her own in a competitive landscape.”
Looking ahead
The $1m investment will now help FemTek with product development, team expansion and marketing. It will also work towards CE mark / FDA approval according to its website.
“Our whole mission is about giving women body literacy and cycle literacy which helps them make better healthcare decisions and lessen the cost of women’s healthcare,” she said.