💌 Issue 95: Elvie's legacy | €4m for Fizimed expansion | unproven fertility add-ons

+ lots more in your weekly round-up of women's health innovation and FemTech news

FutureFemHealth

Apr 02, 2025

Hi! Welcome to issue #95 of FutureFemHealth (w/c March 31 2025).

🌟 Coming up today we’ve got:

🏆 Elvie’s legacy
💰 French femtech firm Fizimed raises €4m to expand internationally
🤰🏼 Progyny adds doula services to maternal health support
🛑 Three-quarters of UK fertility patients using unproven add-on treatments, says watchdog

Got news to share from the world of FemTech and women’s health innovation? Let me know at anna@futurefemhealth.com

🏆 Elvie’s legacy: the pioneer that changed more than just product design

By now it’s clear that FemTech pioneer Elvie - best known for its wearable breast pumps and pelvic health devices - didn’t get the ‘dream exit’ it might once have planned.

Bankrupt and entering administration (despite raising c.$136m in its 12 year run) Elvie was last week acquired by US rival Willow. Read our full story is here.

Varying reports I’ve read suggest that Elvie struggled with profitability, was forced to scale too fast to satisfy investors (and then struggled to do so) and faced challenges with its costly model of mainly direct-to-consumer sales.

Trying to sell a premium product - the Elvie double Pump can cost upwards of $600 - during a cost of living crisis certainly didn’t help.

But this acquisition also signals the maturation of the FemTech market as smaller startups consolidate into bigger, more powerful category leaders. Willow, Elvie’s new owner, has already indicated that it will now benefit from global distribution, more efficient operations and a diverse product line. We may see a significant global player emerging from this deal.

The legacy lives on

While Elvie’s journey as an independent company ends, its impact on the Femtech can’t be forgotten.

Founder Tania Boler was pitching a product for pelvic floor health to a room full of male investors in 2013, before the term ‘femtech’ had even been coined.

Investors dismissed women’s health products as too niche, but she persisted, launching the Elvie Trainer and later, the Elvie Pump, the silent, wearable breast pump that truly revolutionized the market (and I don’t use that term lightly). When it first launched in the U.S. the breast pump sold out in eight minutes, and left 35,000 women on its waiting list.

But Elvie was never just about the products - it built a cultural movement. While other companies focused on functionality, Elvie focused on breaking stigmas and smashing taboos. It made conversations around pelvic floor health, breastfeeding, and postpartum recovery mainstream in a way no other brand had before. From placing giant inflatable breasts across London for the #FreeTheFeed campaign to having models wear the pump on the London Fashion Week runway, Elvie proved that women’s health wasn’t just a market - it was a driving force for change.

Elvie leaves behind a legacy to be proud of. It trailblazed a path for a lasting cultural shift - influencing investors, brands, and society to take women’s health seriously.

And with that, Elvie has opened the door for the next generation of FemTech startups to thrive.

💰 Funding, deals and investment news

📌 US/UK: Willow acquires femtech rival Elvie as it expands global maternal health platform. As we trailed in our lead story above, this deal brings together two of the sector’s most recognisable and longest-running brands, combining their product portfolios and international reach. Terms were undisclosed. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 FRANCE: French femtech firm Fizimed raises €4m to expand internationally. With a product line almost identical to now-acquired Elvie - namely pelvic health devices and wearable breast pumps - this investment round in Fizimed is very timely given it also intends to expand into the US. Perhaps proof D2C in this category isn’t going anywhere just yet. Autonomous Patient Fund led this financing round. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 US: Bladder leak solution start-up Uresta expands to U.S with $3m raise. Originally established in Canada and already used by over 30,000 women, Uresta is a reusable and comfortable insertable support device which is an alternative to absorbent products and surgical interventions. Majority investor was BDC Capital. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 US: Women’s health and sexual wellness are a $360 billion opportunity in the U.S alone, new report. The market opportunity in women’s health is often described as massive, but this new Amboy Street Ventures report paints a picture of just how huge it can be. With a particularly vivid term ‘ghost markets’ used to describe the lack of competition in up to 40 specific unmet needs, there are staggering opportunities at play here: $131 billion in menopause, $19 billion in hot flashes alone and $23 billion in abnormal uterine bleeding. (Continue reading: Fortune and Amboy Street Ventures)

🌟 Industry news

person holding belly photo — Photo by Suhyeon Choi on Unsplash

📌 US: Progyny adds doula services to maternal health support. Doulas serve as a resource for information, advocacy and support during pregnancy, with research suggesting they may contribute to reduced C-section rates and fewer birth complications. In this new offering women’s health company Progyny adds Pacify, a provider of maternity care solutions, to deliver this new doula service via employers and health plans. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 US: Wisp launches male BV partner treatment. Traditionally thought of as a women’s issue, new evidence supports that bacterial vaginosis can be sexually transmitted between men and women. Recognizing this, women’s telehealth company Wisp is now offering a male bacterial vaginosis (BV) partner treatment. (Continue reading: MedCity News)

📌 EUROPE: Private Equity firm Astorg launches global fertility company Nexpring Health after series of acquisitions. While private equity firms typically invest in existing businesses rather than creating their own, Astorg’s move to acquire businesss and bring them together into a consolidated global brand could help them build a dominant market player they can exit later down the line. In this instance, Nexpring offers embryologists and fertility clinics a broad portfolio of tools to enhance reproductive medicine. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 US: GSK ushers in new UTI antibiotic with FDA nod for first-in-class Blujepa. For the first time in 30 years, the FDA has cleared a new class of oral antibiotics for the treatment of urinary tract infection. Blujepa is the first in the class to be given the green light by the FDA - and it’s a much-needed option for the up to 16m US women who are impacted annually. GSK plans to launch Blujepa later this year. (Continue reading: Fierce Pharma)

📌 NORDICS: Mapping the women’s health innovation ecosystem. The Nordic Women’s Health Hub has updated its map of the ecosystem. It covers areas including reproductive health and menstrual health through to chronic conditions too. Investors, events and accelerators are also mapped. (Continue reading: Nordic Women’s Health Hub via LinkedIn)

🩸 Research and women’s health news

📌 GLOBAL: 7 key trends shaping the global fertility and family-building landscape. Drawing on insights from 170 countries, Carrot Fertility’s report dives into declining fertility rates, changing laws, demand for fertility care benefits and growing awareness for donor-assisted reproduction. While the themes in this report may not be new, the country-specific examples (such as the rise of postpartum care hotels in South Korea) make this one an interesting read. (Continue reading: Carrot Fertility)

📌 UK: King’s College London-led trial shows AI can reduce pregnancy scan duration. During pregnancy, a 20-week scan is critical for detecting serious conditions in the foetus. Researchers have found they can cut the length of this scan by 40% with the use of AI without losing accuracy - freeing up sonographer time to communicate with parents and investigate areas of concern. The tech will now be expanded through Fraiya, a spinout company from KCL. (Continue reading: Medical Device Network)

📌 UK: Three-quarters of UK fertility patients using unproven add-on treatments. The UK’s fertility watchdog has found that around 40,000 people a year wanting to conceive are spending money on acupuncture, supplements and drugs, even though they are largely unproven it says. Some extra treatments cost up to £1,500. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) issued the caution in its latest annual national patient survey. (Continue reading: The Guardian)

📄 Govt & policy news

📌 UK: Women’s health priorities for the 10 year health plan. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) has called for women’s health to be placed at the heart of the Government’s new 10 year health plan. It calls for the prioritisation of women’s health, investment in workforce and estates, continuation of women’s health hubs, the tackling of lengthy gynae waiting lists, improved maternity care and more focus on preventative health. (Continue reading: RCOG)

📌 CANADA: SOGC calls on Canadian political parties to prioritize women’s health. Ahead of the upcoming election, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC) says stronger policies are needed to address gaps in access to care and counter the growing threat of misinformation and to improve health outcomes for women in Canada. The SOGC also calls for the protection and defence of sexual and reproductive health and rights. (Continue reading: SOGC)

📌 US: What happens to health research when ‘women’ is a banned word? Trump's federal funding cuts are shutting down studies on Alzheimer’s care, uterine fibroids and pregnancy risks — all because they focus on gender. “If we are banning this study of these issues, or deciding we’re not going to invest in that work, it freezes progress.” (Continue reading: the 19th)

🔥 Win a Free Ticket to SIS Women's Health NY! 🔥

Missed the early bird deadline? Here’s your chance to attend SIS Women’s Health New York 2025 for free! SIS NY is where Growth Stage Innovators, Investors, Multinationals, Payors, Government, and Non-Profits come together to shape the future of women's health.

👉 How to enter: 💬 Comment on this post & tag two industry peers and 🔁 repost for an extra entry. 📅 Deadline: Friday, 5 PM ET - 🎟️ Enter now

📆 Save the date: Tech4Eva opening ceremony

Be where Femtech disruption happens on May 12 to meet the 2025 start-ups of the Tech4Eva 6-month equity-free global accelerator program by EPFL Innovation Park and Groupe Mutuel.

👉 Discover the latest advancements in women's health and oncology and connect with 250+ experts, investors, and innovators in the field. Stay tuned for more information on speakers.

📌Register here.

🎧 This week’s FemTech Focus podcast

🎧 Menstrual health with yourcomma.com. In this episode Miller Morris, founder of ‘Sara’, a HIPAA-compliant period tracking app, built by Comma Collective joins Dr Brittany Barreto to discuss:

why do humans have periods?
data privacy in women’s health
Miller’s own fundraising experience

Find FemTech Focus on your favourite streaming platform or watch on YouTube.

✅ Jobs

📌 UK: Events and Communications Manager, Talking Taboos Foundation (1 day a week paid role)

📌 UK: Senior Product Designer (user-centric and design systems)

📌 US: Primary Care Physician (remote), Systole Health

📌 US: Director, Marketing, Bobbie

That’s all for this week! See you next time. If you’ve missed any previous newsletter issues catch them all at futurefemhealth.com and do make sure to follow us on LinkedIn.