Issue 33: €2.3m for Yoni period care | 2023 look-back | At-home fertility test from Arva Health | CE mark for ASPIVIX
+ lots more in your weekly round-up of women's health innovation and FemTech news
Hi! Welcome to issue #33 of FutureFemHealth, here to bring you your weekly news about women’s health innovation and FemTech (w/c 18 December 2023).
🌟 Coming up today we’ve got:
🌎 A 2023 look back
🩸 Period-care brand Yoni raises €2.3m
🏠 India’s Arva Health launches at-home fertility test
✅ Aspivix secures CE mark approval for its gentler alternative to the tenaculum
Got news to share from the world of FemTech and women’s health innovation? Let me know at anna@futurefemhealth.com
📈 2023 has been the year the world has begun to catch-up on the potential of women’s health.
There’s been a surge of interest from mainstream media, driven largely from women learning more and demanding more. This has helped to destigmatise and break taboos while also putting pressure on policy makers, large retailers, big brands and employers to do more.
The data gap has been acknowledged with unprecedented focus on women’s health research from The White House. And company-driven initiatives such as Clue’s commitment to surfacing its data for good (see this week’s issue below) may mean more answers faster about our bodies.
We seen increasing recognition that investors need to pay more attention to this sector (a drum that FemTech founders have banged for years). A 314% increase for FemTech startups in the last five years is a start - but of course we need more than 2% of start-up funding and it burns that male founders in FemTech raise more than female founders.
Dismissal of women’s pain and suffering is making way for new innovations - Matrix’s wireless camera device to replace the speculum, Bayer and Crossbay’s ‘CrossGlide’ for inserting birth control, and ASPIVIX’s gentler alternative to the tenaculum (in this week’s issue) to name just a few.
Other standouts themes for me this year have been the rise in at-home diagnostics and fertility support, the increasing role of the employers in supporting female health here in the UK, and the growing interest in preventative health.
Thank you for being a reader of my newsletter in 2023 - whether for just one issue or right from the start. Since I launched this platform in April I’ve learnt so much, met lots of amazing people and reinforced my excitement and interest in this wonderful space.
See you all in 2024,
Anna
💰 Funding, deals and investment news
📌 AMSTERDAM: Period-care brand Yoni raises €2.3m. Plastic-free and sustainable period care brand Yoni will further its brand-building and go for international expansion for its tampons, pads, liners and underwear. Yoni has already had great success as a challenger brand since launch in 2015 - with 3,000 points of sale in Benelux and the UK, including major retailers (my local Sainsbury’s supermarket for one!). The company’s turnover has also increased by over 30 per cent last year, making it the fastest-growing women’s healthcare brand in Dutch retail. The latest funding came from ROMInWest, Rabobank, Invest International and existing angel investors. (Source: Silicon Canals)
📌 GLOBAL: $3.5m for Biorithm maternity care. Biorithm’s remote monitoring platform ‘Femom’ aims to improve maternal health outcomes and reduce preventable pregnancy complications. This Series A funding will allow it to expand in Southeast Asia and the US and develop its technology. 800 women a day die in childbirth. Biorithm CEO and Founder Amrish Nair said: “There is a collapse of maternal care driven by socio-economic factors and limitation of current monitoring technologies in many regions across the world, and we are hard at work to solve this problem in partnership with others.” Co-lead investors were Adaptive Capital Partners and SEEDS Capital. (Source: Hitconsultant)
📌 NEW ZEALAND: Running app Femmi secures funding. Founded by two elite athletes, Kiwi-based Femmi provides body education and training programs that optimise for menstrual cycles. It has secured investment from NZ-based Even Capital. Funding undisclosed. (Source: Even Capital)
🌟 More news from this week
📌 INDIA: Arva Health launches at-home fertility test for PCOS. India-based Arva Health tracks 12 hormone levels that may affect fertility, catering particularly to women with conditions such as PCOS and thyroid issues. Dipalie Bajaj, cofounder and CEO said they also “aim to be a reproductive health concierge, helping users manage their health journey by recommending safe, vetted doctors, facilitating appointment bookings, and connecting users with a supportive community of individuals on a similar path.” Earlier this year another India-based at-home hormone test, Inito, raised $6m in Series A funding. (Source: Startup Story)
📌 SWITZERLAND: Aspivix secures CE mark approval for its gentler alternative to the tenaculum. The traditional forceps-like tenaculum is a big reason for the pain and bleeding women experience during uterine procedures such as IUD insertion. Aspivix’s device, Carevix, is a soft-suction cervical device designed to make the process less painful. One patient has said: “the difference between my Mirena insertion in 2017 and the Carevix insertion is MONUMENTAL. Minimal pain.” While Carevix is already FDA-cleared since early 2023, the new CE mark approval just achieved is an important milestone that allows Aspivix to expand worldwide. (Source: Aspivix via press release)
📌 30 new start-ups win UX design sponsorship. Guidea, an award-winning UX design agency, has selected a new group of early-stage FemTech companies for its 2024 UX program. This year’s companies are tackling areas including breast cancer, hormone health and pelvic floor health. "Femtech is the industry that will change the world," said Guidea CEO and co-founder Theresa Neil. "Femovate can provide a small but powerful boost for these companies to jump to the forefront of femtech and bring solutions to millions of women globally." (Source: Forbes)
📌 USA: Why The Flex Co. founder Lauren Wang bought a sex education start-up. In women’s health, educational content builds brands. Last week we shared news that sexual and reproductive health education platform Allbodies had been acquired by period care company The Flex Co. to help them do just that. The Flex Co. Founder Lauren Wang owes their success to date to education saying: “The fact that more people are buying discs than cups today with far less category awareness is a testament to the benefits of this product category, and Flex's ability to create educational content to move a market.” Now, with Allbodies, Lauren aims to double-down on education about bodies and reproductive health. (Source: Lauren Wang on LinkedIn)
🩸 Research and women’s health news
📌 Scientists pinpoint cause of severe morning sickness. The culprit is a hormone produced by the fetus - a protein known as GDF15. Findings bring hope of a cure in the future. (Source: University of Cambridge)
📌 New hot flush drug approved for UK. Veoza (also known as fezolinetant) is a daily treatment for hot flushes and night sweats. It’s significant because it’s a non-hormonal way to treat these menopause symptoms. Previously approved in the USA by the FDA, Veoza now needs further review here before it can be prescribed through the NHS. (Source: BBC)
📌 Time to end the misery of UTIs. In the last five years there were 1.8m hospital admissions for urinary tract infections (UTIs). And women are 30 times more likely to get them than men. But low doses of local vaginal oestrogen - rather than commonly given antibiotics - could reduce UTIs by 50%. Campaigning journalist Kate Muir argues this just isn’t being promoted enough. (Source: The Guardian)
📌 Clinical trial results published for Daye tampons. The Journal of Endometriosis and Uterine Disorders has highlighted the efficacy and safety of Daye’s CBD-infused tampon to manage menstrual pain. Based on a study, it’s found that cannabidiol-infused tampons achieved ‘statistically significant’ pain reduction. This published study is an important step in evidencing alternative ways to manage menstrual pain. (Source: Science Direct)
📌 Clue launches research initiative with top global universities. Period tracking app Clue is partnering with universities to use anonymous health data from its users to help close the diagnosis gap for female health conditions. (Source: University of Exeter)
📌 The great fertility divide. Black women are more likely to experience infertility than white women - and are less likely to get the help they need due to biased reproductive care and the myth of hyper-fertility. “For a long time our social narratives about infertility centered on white, upper socioeconomic-class couples. And it was very focused on high-tech, highly-expensive medical interventions like IVF [in vitro fertilization],” says Rosario Ceballo, dean of Georgetown University College of Arts and Science. Now, a burgeoning number of Black infertility doulas and online communities for Black women for trying to conceive are emerging. (Source: The Guardian)
📌 Startups and physicians must unite to empower women’s health. OB-GYN Lyndsey Harper, founder and CEO of Rosy, explains why we need more collaboration in women’s health. She writes: “If physicians can open their minds and rethink their role in innovation, and startups involve the perspective of the physician in every decision from the beginning of their company’s journey, we can create the version of women’s health that we all want to experience and can set the standard for healthcare as a whole.” (Source: TechCrunch)
📄 Govt & policy news
📌 USA: Menopause Research and Equity Act reaches Congress. Hot on the heels of the first-ever White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research is this latest step forward which marks a commitment to specifically address perimenopause, menopause and midlife health. It will require the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to assess the status of menopause research in particular, and recommend new, needed studies that will close the gaps in knowledge. Welcome news given last year the NIH allocated just 10.8% of its $45b budget to women’s health research. (Source: The Hill)
See you next time,
Anna