Issue 47: FemTech's 'dynamic growth' | $1m for Femtek smart ring | menopause platform launch by Kenvue

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

Apr 03, 2024

Hello and welcome to issue #47 of FutureFemHealth, here to bring you your weekly news about women’s health innovation and FemTech (w/c 1 April 2024).

🌟 Coming up today we’ve got:

🔥 ‘Dynamic growth’ for FemTech in 2023 - new report
🏆 $1m for the wearable you barely have to wear
📌 Kenvue launches digital platform for menopause
✅ New app for Australians to help diagnose and manage endometriosis

Would you like to sponsor and support the growth of FutureFemHealth? Find out more at anna@futurefemhealth.com

🔥 2023 marked ‘dynamic growth’ for FemTech - new landscape report

“FemTech has finally cemented its position in the mainstream, moving beyond the fringes of the tech and healthcare sectors.”

That’s one of the exciting findings from the FemHealth Insights annual FemTech Landscape report for 2023 out this week.

Dr Brittany Barreto and her team have pulled together a brilliantly comprehensive look at the year gone by - identifying 1,416 active global FemTech companies (half established in the last five years) across 60 countries worldwide, plus an analysis of all the investments, acquisitions and exits.

There’s so much useful info in here. For example, I learnt that:

London has the highest number of FemTech startups of any city globally (woohoo).
Singapore has been the country with the most rapid growth in FemTech since 2019.
78% of start-ups addressing female-specific mental health concerns outside of postpartum and PMS have been founded in the last five years.
74% of menopause startups have emerged since 2019.
As of 1 March 2024, FemTech has seen 15 IPOs and 149 mergers and acquisitions.

This is a snapshot of an industry that is now clearly growing, maturing and attracting more attention. While sometimes it’s hard not to get frustrated by how far is left to go, the momentum is moving us in the right direction.

Download the full free report here.

📦 The $1m wearable you’ll barely need to wear

Image: Founder Olivia Orchowski wearing her Basal Body Ring. Credit: FemTek.

The Australian-founded Basal Body Ring, has just secured $1m of 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”.

Olivia founded her company 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.

It’s 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.

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 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.

Read this article in full on FutureFemHealth here.

Thank you for reading FutureFemHealth. Feel free to share this newsletter with a colleague or on social media using the link below:

📌 Denmark: Pelvic floor cushion Empelvic gets acquired. Empelvic was created in the belief that people want to treat pelvic and sexual health conditions at home. Its cushion is ergonomically designed to support pelvic floor strengthening and rehabilitation without needing to visit a doctor. The global medical device company Owen Mumford has now acquired Empelvic to add to its own pelvic and sexual health portfolio. (Source: Med-TechNews)

🌟 More news from this week

📌 US: Kenvue launches ‘Versalie’ - a digital ‘one-stop-shop’ platform for menopause. Kenvue (behind huge brands such as Aveeno and Johnson’s) found that 62% of those going through menopause did not discuss it with their doctors. The global consumer health company is now investing in the menopause space, launching ‘Versalie’ - which is a suite of menopause resources, a curated storefront of own-brand and third-party product options, plus in-platform virtual care appointments. Kenvue says it’s spent more than three years researching the menopause space - so expect serious focus on this launch and its success. (Source: FutureFemHealth)

📌 Australia: New app launches to help diagnose and manage endometriosis. Many Australians live with symptoms of endometriosis undiagnosed for years, especially in rural and remote areas. Users of the app CHARLI - developed in partnership with Endometriosis Australia - log their symptoms and the AI technology helps to identify abnormal patterns. The app also includes a virtual clinic and group support, with infertility and pregnancy support to be added over the next year. (Source: Women’s Agenda)

📌 Japan: Infertility startups are booming. Japan is grappling with a low birth rate, one in 4.4 couple in Japan seek help for infertility, and public health insurance started covering some fertility treatments two years ago. The consequence is bigger sums of money being invested into startups that until recently struggled to grab the attention of VC funds. Japan’s overall FemTech sector is also estimated to have grown 30% in four years. (Source: Bloomberg)

📌 HRT reviews now collected on The Lowdown. When women seek help for menopause and perimenopause, they’re often told to do their own research on treatment options like types of HRT, CBT and lifestyle changes. The Lowdown is building the platform for women to do that research - and is now collecting HRT reviews and experiences of perimenopause. It’s all part of the The Lowdown’s vision to be the research platform for women’s health. (Source: The Lowdown)

📌 US: The blood test that could predict life-threatening pregnancy complications months in advance. One in five pregnancies are impacted by complications - and a staggering four in five pregnancy-related deaths in the US are preventable. Fast Company has profiled start-up Mirvie - which is working to reverse the maternal health crisis by developing a simple blood test that could predict life-threatening pregnancy complications months in advance. (Source: Fast Company)

🩸 Research and women’s health news

📌 UK: The rise in women giving up on the fight for a diagnosis. Swelling numbers of women lost in the healthcare system are resorting to self-diagnosis using online information and social media. A combination of long-waiting lists as well as pain dismissal and a lack of support is believed to be behind the shift. (Source: Women’s Health)