💌 Issue 91: Femtech VC market snapshot | Big tech suppresses women's health | Tia adds nutrition support | Oura pregnancy study
+ lots more in your weekly round-up of women's health and Femtech news
Hello and welcome to issue #91 of FutureFemHealth (w/c March 3 2025).
Another busy week for me with an important project for CensHERship campaign - all will be revealed next week on that!
🌟 Coming up today we’ve got:
✅ Femtech VC market snapshot
🛑 Big tech is suppressing women’s health information
🍏 Tia adds personalized nutrition support
🤰🏼 ŌURA launches first-of-its-kind pregnancy study with Scripps
But before that: Would you like to sponsor an upcoming FutureFemHealth newsletter? We’re read by nearly 8,000 professionals, founders and investors in women’s health and I’ve got a few slots available in March and April. For more info and a copy of our media pack drop me a line: anna@futurefemhealth.com
🌫 Blurred lines?
‘Whole person’, holistic healthcare in women’s health is nothing new - companies like Maven and Kindbody has long integrated wellness services and medical care.
But I’m spotting even more blurring of lines between pharmaceutical intervention and lifestyle-based health solutions.
Two examples from this week to highlight this shift: women’s healthcare provider Tia is partnering with Nourish (full story here) to add nutritional counselling to its offering. That’s an acknowledgement of the role that our diet can play in our hormonal health, fertility and chronic disease management.
And meanwhile Noom, known for its behavioral weight loss platform is expanding into hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to support women navigating menopause. In its announcement (full story here), it specifically calls out that menopause symptom management / weight management during menopause ‘extends beyond willpower.’
The maturing of the women’s health sector is driving this change - responding to more nuanced consumer understanding, while scale-ups look to broaden business models and make them more sustainable. Plus I wonder if GLP-1s have contributed to this shift too - since these diabetes medications are now used for weight management and have prompted wellness brands and digital health startups to integrate them into their broader care models.
Why the blurring matters
Overall, there are benefits to the convergence of medical intervention and lifestyle-based health solutions - patients get more rounded care that doesn’t over-medicalize what they might need, and it’s often all in one place.
And with the shift the new revenue opportunities could see investors backing companies that can blend this clinical credibility with consumer engagement.
But it also means patients are consumers. While they expect holistic solutions I wonder if they might struggle to differentiate between evidence-based medical treatment vs general lifestyle guidance. Clarity is needed.
My key takeaway is that there’s a responsibility here for providers to be transparent and clear. Yes, patients are more informed than ever, but as the lines continue to blur this transparency is key to maintaining trust and medical integrity.
💰 Funding, deals and investment news
📌 Pitchbook’s 2025 Femtech VC market snapshot. Taking in VC activity across more than 1,000 femtech companies, this is a broadly optimistic summary of the landscape. Here’s the key stats and takeaways that caught my eye:
VC funding in 2024 reached $1.2 billion in 2024 - 20% up on the year prior.
Deal counts haven’t surpassed 2021’s peak of 284 total.
Pitchbook predicts at least one IPO in femtech in the next few years - with Flo Health, Maven, Kindbody, Comanche Biopharma and Elvie among the top contenders.
Fertility remains a ‘compelling opportunity’ and pelvic health is called out as another growth area alongside cancer screening and treatment and virtual care.
Wearables are a standout category - with applications in many areas.
Funding in the whole sector is still a hurdle - the only ‘cheat code’ seems to be, depressingly, to find a male co-founder.
To be positioned for success, startups need to show investors how they will expand product offerings and/or enter adjacent markets to scale. M&A activity is likely to be high as the sector consolidates.
(Continue reading: Pitchbook - full report here (email required))
🌟 Industry news from this week
📌 GLOBAL: Big tech is suppressing essential women’s health information. An important new report confirms what we all know - the digital censorship of women’s health information across Meta, Google, TikTok and Amazon. With hundreds of examples and compelling evidence, The Center for Intimacy Justice now calls for better content moderation practices to support accurate health information and remove barriers for women’s health companies. (Continue reading: CIJ and Wired)
📌 GLOBAL: Unicorn Flo Health eyeing startup acquisitions following $200m fundraise. Sifted is reporting that health app Flo wants to expand into new health verticals and ramp up revenue in the wake of its record 2024 fundraise. CFO Tamara Orlova told Sifted that M&A targets include those that could ‘significantly improve user experience’ and add value into segments Flo is focused on, such as perimenopause. (Continue reading: Sifted)
📌 UK: Endo45 app expands to the UK amid growing gynaecology waitlists, offering proactive support for people living with endometriosis. Already available in New Zealand and Australia, Endo45 includes a key feature, the ‘EndoFit score’ designed to help users build lasting, transformative habits that directly address the drivers of endometriosis. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)
📌 US: Stork Club launches postpartum depression care to help employers support working mothers. Postpartum depression affects up to 20% of working mothers, with more than half going undiagnosed. And women experiencing PPD are twice as likely to leave their jobs, contributing to substantial turnover costs and workplace disruptions. Stork Club’s solution integrates a clinically-validated digital cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) which is said to deliver 30-40% improvement for users within six months. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)
📌 Tia adds personalized nutrition support through partnership with Nourish. As outlined in our main story above, women’s healthcare company Tia will now help its patients access nutritional counselling - reinforcing its role in our overall health. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)
📌 US: Noom expands into menopause with HRT support. With origins as a behavioral-change weight management platform, Noom is repositioning and recognises that the challenges of menopause extend beyond willpower alone. This new offering includes a subscription-based HRT medication alongside existing support on nutrition and exercise. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)
🩸 Research and women’s health news
📌 GLOBAL: ŌURA launches first-of-its-kind pregnancy study with Scripps. This real-world study will retrospectively analyze pregnancies that occurred in the past three years. Beyond Oura, it could advance public understanding of pregnancy-related conditions and identify potential warning signs of complications such as postpartum depression, miscarriage risk, and pre-term labor. This announcement coincides with the news that Oura’s Readiness Score algorithm now takes into account the biometric changes that occur throughout the menstrual cycle. (Continue reading: Oura)
📌 GLOBAL: Oura ring to be used in new study on menstrual research across diverse populations. A second study involving Oura - this time led by Stanford University - will equip up to 10,000 participants with Oura Rings to track their biometric data. Notably, this research aims to deepen our understanding of menstrual cycle physiology in underrepresented groups, moving beyond Oura’s existing user base to ensure more inclusive and representative findings. (Continue reading: Oura)
📌 UK: New womb cancer test now available. This easy-to-use, simple swab test reduces the number of false positives by 87% while detecting the same number of women with womb cancer as ultrasound does. Developed by UCL spinout company Sola Diagnostics, the test is already available in clinics in Austria and Switzerland and is now being rolled out in private clinics in the UK. It’s also been registered with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) with hopes it can now negotiate availability on the NHS. (Continue reading: UCL)
📌 GLOBAL: The burden of osteoarthitisis among postmenopausal women continues to escalate. Osteoarthritis is a prevalent, progressively developing joint disorder that notably affects middle-aged and older individuals, substantially impacting their quality of life and ability to perform daily activities. This new systemic analysis identifies that since 1990 cases have increased by 133% to more than 14 million globally. The study highlights the significant impact and a need for more effective monitoring, management and policy interventions. (Continue reading: BMJ Journals)
📌 UK: Menopausal women spending average £1,800 a year to combat symptoms. Sales data shows products such as vitamins, skincare and smart watches are among the most popular areas for spending. And greater awareness of perimenopause and menopause symptoms has seen an increase in sales for Omega-3 fish oil, sleep aids and weighted blankets. (Continue reading: The Industry Beauty)
📆 Opportunities
📌 Turn your AI-driven start-up into a venture-backed company. 1616 Ventures just launched a new program for US-based, AI-driven founders. 1616 Ignite is an 8-week virtual accelerator, powered by 1616 Ventures, designed to help early-stage founders turn their ideas into venture-backed companies. Perks include $20k in funding (with potential follow-on investment of up to $100k), hands-on mentorship and a structured path to fundraising. Apply here.
1616 Ventures is also hosting two information sessions on the program on March 11 at 6pm EST (info here) or March 18 at 6pm EST (info here).
✅ Jobs
📌 UK: Brand and community manager, Ovum
📌 UK: Health Collective Community Manager, Wellbeing of Women
📌 UK: Paralegal, British Pregnancy Advisory Service
📌 US: Senior Product Manager, Revenue, Tia
📌 US: Senior Human Resources Manager, Flex
📌 US / remote: Provider Network Manager, Gaia
📌 GLOBAL: Dignified Menstruation Media Fellowship 2025, Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation
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.
It's nice to see that menopause is taken "seriously" by investors. I wish to live in a world where we have hundreds of businesses to support us in this season of your life.