Issue 38: Investor rules petition | $740k for stress-free fertility platform Zora Health | Flo Health on privacy

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

Jan 31, 2024

Hi! Welcome to issue #38 of FutureFemHealth, here to bring you your weekly news about women’s health innovation and FemTech (w/c 29 January 2024).

I’m lucky enough to be in the city of Bath this week enjoying tasty food, spa time and some fresh air. Hit reply to let me know any recommendations while I’m here!

🌟 Coming up today we’ve got:

🛑 The petition to stop new investment rules
❤️ ”Mentally exhausting” - a FemTech founder shares her experience fundraising
✅ $740,000 for stress-free fertility platform Zora Health
👩🏽‍💻 Flo Health steps up commitment to privacy

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

🛑 Changes to investment rules could disproportionately hit FemTech sector

Image: screenshot of the open letter to the chancellor.

Founders and investors have launched a campaign to stop the UK Government introducing new investment rules.

From today (31 January) you’ll need to have significantly more earnings or wealth to be eligible to be an angel investor under the revised Financial Promotions Act.

This will exclude many more people, especially women, from investing. In some areas of the country there may be zero women considered high net worth individuals based on earnings. The knock-on impact is a smaller pool of angel investors for start-ups including in FemTech.

An open letter to the Chancellor explains that angel investing now risks becoming an elite-only activity. You can sign the petition here to help halt the proposed changes.

Continue reading: FutureFemHealth

❤️ 'My pre-seed fundraise was unsuccessful - here's what I learnt'

Image: Rel Eve co. founder Jasmine Bennett

“Scary, uncomfortable, mentally exhausting.” Rel Eve co.’s Jasmine Bennett shares her experience of fundraising as a Black, female, FemTech founder - and why she’s not deterred from fundraising again.

Continue reading: FutureFemHealth

💰 Funding, deals and investment news

Image: Zora Health founder Anna Haotanto

📌 SINGAPORE: Zora Health secures $740,000 to launch fertility care platform. Founder Anna Haotanto wants to take the stress and overwhelm out of IVF and egg freezing. After her own health experiences she’s launching a fertility care platform connected to clinics worldwide. It’s great timing for this offering in Singapore - after egg freezing rules were relaxed in July last year. Initial backing is led by Antler. (Source: FutureFemHealth)

📌 US: 3Daughters secures $2million for pain-free contraception insertion. 3Daughters wants to radically transform the IUD market by eliminating the major barrier to adoption - pain during insertion. Its clever frameless, magnetic, non-hormonal IUD works with its patented i-Slider for comfortable insertion. The seed round was led by Thairm Bio, whose CEO Mark Bamforth said: “Given the apparent urgency for new and effective contraceptive options and the pain women experience with IUDs, I recognised the need and formed an investment vehicle with my colleagues to help fund this important innovation for women.” 3Daughters now aims to bring in a further $1m for its seed round. (Source: FutureFemHealth)

📌 UK: Aura Fertility app acquired by IBSA UK. 90% of people who struggle to conceive report stress, anxiety or depression. London-based Aura was founded in 2020 to support the emotional challenges of IVF with holistic, psychosocial care. Pharma company IBSA UK is the new owner of Aura and will use its partnerships with fertility clinics to take forward the app. (Source: Aura)

📌 CANADA: Cross-Border Impact Ventures (CBIV) closes $90m of investor commitments for its women’s and children’s healthtech fund. The VC firm has already made five investments to date - including period company Daye. Its primary focus will be in North America, Europe and Israel in large markets with unmet needs. Annie Thériault, Managing Partner at CBIV said: “Our fundraising success proves that there is a large pool of investors that believes they can earn market returns while achieving ambitious impact targets with their dollars.” (Source: Private Capital Journal)

🌟 More news from this week

📌 US: ‘Condoms made by women’ - Nixit’s new condoms that are putting vaginas first. Start-up Nixit has launched external condoms designed with women in mind to intentionally avoid disrupting pH levels and UTI-causing chemical irritants. (Source: FutureFemHealth)

📌 GLOBAL: Flo Health steps up privacy commitments. Data privacy is a critical part of building and maintaining trust in FemTech. Period tracking app Flo Health has just attained a ‘gold standard’ in the form of ISO 27701 certification that adds to its existing 27001 certification. (Source: FutureFemHealth)

📌 Why your FemTech startup needs input from a qualified medical professional. Dr Lyndsey Harper makes the case for patient-driven startups to involve medics from day one and beyond, as a way to establish credibility and be more evidence-based. (Source: Tech Crunch)

📌 Menopause is finally going mainstream. We’ve been reporting it for months - but Time magazine now says both the medical and business worlds are getting serious about the needs of the millions who reach menopause each year. For a meaningful shift though, it says, we need more research, more medical training and for practitioners to take women’s pain seriously. Hear, hear. Menopause start-up Alloy features. (Continue reading: Time magazine)

🩸 Research and women’s health news

📌 How ovarian tissue freezing could prevent menopause - possibly forever. Setting aside whether this is actually a good idea or not, new research from the Yale School of Medicine has built a new mathematical model to predict how long menopause could be delayed if tissue is frozen and then reimplanted. No human tests have so far been carried out - this is an idea that is still way in the future. (Source: Yale)

📌 The biotech changing the IVF process. Oviva Therapeutics is working to improve ovarian function, boosting the number of eggs retrieved during IVF. Its treatment is currently in preclinical research. Eventually, it says it could also delay the onset of menopause and hold off egg supply depletion. Oviva’s COO Rachel Rubin shares her personal experience of infertility as well as the start-ups progress. (Source: SheKnows)

📌 ENGLAND: Have your say - maternity care research: What are the safety features you think are critical to delivering safe, high quality maternity care in England? The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute (THIS Institute) is leading an independent evaluation of the Care Quality Commission’s National Maternity Inspection Programme. Have your say here by 6 Feb.

📄 Govt & policy news

📌 FRANCE: ‘Leave our uteruses in peace.’ There’s been outcry in France as President Macron offers free fertility tests as the country’s birthrates slump. Others have praised the proactiveness of the initiative. (Source: ITV News)

📌 UK: Breast cancer could cost UK economy £3.6 bn by 2034. There are now 55,000 new cases of breast cancer in the UK each year - and 11,000 deaths. As well as the cost to life, a new report sets out the financial implications if there is no action to improve screening rates and cut advanced cancer cases. (Source: Independent)