💌 'The valley of death' in women's health | GG Ventures announces $30m first close | Italy's FemTech landscape | Melinda Gates initiative

The global weekly briefing on women's health innovation and FemTech

Sep 17, 2025

Welcome to issue 114 of FutureFemHealth, (w/c September 15 2025) — we’re trusted by 8,500 investors, innovators and leaders to decode the funding flows, breakthrough ideas and policy shifts transforming the sector.

🌟 In this week’s briefing:

🔥 Exclusive: How AthenaBIO’s new $5m vehicle aims to bridge the “valley of death” in women's health
💪🏼 ’The decade of female performance’ - GG Ventures announces $30m first close of fund to invest in women's health, longevity and sports.
🇮🇹 Unveiling Italy’s FemTech landscape
💰 $100m for women’s health research in Melinda Gates-backed initiative

Exclusive: New $5m AthenaBIO vehicle aims to bridge the “valley of death” in women's health

In women’s health, some of the most promising ideas never make it out of the lab.

An AI-program built to discover new drugs for menopause. Or a small molecule therapeutic with the potential to transform care. They might otherwise stay stuck.

Longevity entrepreneur Laura Minquini calls this the ‘valley of death’ - the funding gap between scientific discovery and commercial investment.

“The reason this is not making it out of the lab is not for a lack of science. It’s for a lack of capital,” she says.

On one side sits biotech investors chasing billion-dollar bets.

On the other, femtech backers focused on apps and consumer tools often without the appetite for deep science.

The result? Women’s health breakthroughs too often fall into the middle and disappear.

Laura knows this first-hand. Through AthenaDAO, she and her community raised $1.5 million, funded six labs, seeded start-ups, and built a global network.

But when projects matured, she hit a glass ceiling.

“Our mandate was to fund translational research, not startups,” she explains.
“For these maturing assets to have a chance, they need to operate within traditional funding mechanisms.”

Her answer is AthenaBIO, a newly-announced $5 million equity vehicle that will pool around 15 vetted scientific assets. (Read our full story and interview with Laura here)

Structured as a holding company, AthenaBIO offers investors diversified exposure and flexible timelines — designed precisely to carry discoveries across the valley of death and into the biotech mainstream.

With a thesis focused on AI, diagnostics and platforms, ovarian health and ReproTech, AthenaBIO aims to deliver breakthrough therapeutics and strong exits as the first scientific asset portfolio dedicated to women’s health.

Fresh capital models in women’s health

AthenaBIO is part of a wider shift I’m watching closely: money and support moving into women’s health in new and creative ways.

Philanthropy: Melinda Gates’ Pivotal Ventures and Wellcome Leap have just announced $100M for women’s health research across heart disease, autoimmune illness, and mental health.
Strategic private funding: WHAM’s new 2025 Edge Awards channel private investor support into early-career scientists who ideas are too bold or too early for traditional grants
Venture studios: DAYA Ventures builds solutions in-house by matching founders with ideas and then injecting capital and operational support to get them off the ground.

Traditional VC is still there of course - just this week GG Ventures confirmed a $30m first close on its second fund which will target $100m in total. And a maternal health platform by Lōvu Health secured an impressive $8m led by SJF Ventures.

My takeaway? The capital is coming and through a more diverse set of channels than ever before.

And for Laura and AthenaBIO this is just the start:

“We are laying the next building blocks in our long-term mission to prove that women’s health is the most undervalued growth market opportunity in the life sciences.
“It’s a titan in the making.”

Read our full interview on AthenaBIO here.

💻 Save the date:

Webinar: FutureFemHealth x Women’s Health Horizons (WHH)

To set the stage for WHH’s inaugural event in Boston, I’m excited to share that I’ll be joining a webinar later this month ‘The state of women’s health innovation in 2025.’

As we head into the later half of 2025, this is a perfect time to focus on key trends and pain points in women's health innovation.

Moderated by Ashleigh Niziol of Women’s Health Horizons expect a 45 minute live chat with special guests, with plenty of time for questions.

Watch this space as panel guests will be announced next week - they'll include a founder, healthcare professional, and investor. Stay tuned for more updates and the link to join the webinar!

–

PLUS:

📍Join WHH live in Boston at the Hyatt Regency Boston/Cambridge

🎤 Oct. 15-16, 2025

Led by industry pioneers and focused on action, WHH brings together all corners of the ecosystem: from FemTech founders, VCs, policymakers, and patient perspectives, to payers, providers, life science leaders, and advocacy experts. Expect over 50 speakers and nearly 300 attendees in Boston for their inaugural event.

✅ Register here

💰 Capital flows: where are investors placing bets?

📌 EUROPE: GG Ventures announces $30m first close of fund to invest in women's health, longevity and sports. GG Ventures invests at the growth seed to Series A inflexion point and spans five verticals: sports, strength and wellness; next-gen reproductivity; longevity and chronic diseases; seven female cancers; mental health and cognitive performance. It recognises that women’s sports is now a high-velocity, trusted distribution engine that is catalysing interest in women’s health. This new fund, GG Ventures’ second, is targeting $100m in total. “This is the decade of female performance and we’re not waiting for permission,” said Priya Oberoi-Cattai, Founding General Partner. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 U.S: Lōvu Health closes $8 Million to expand AI-based maternal care platform. Lōvu Health’s real-time remote monitoring alerts clinicians to changes and has already demonstrated success in identifying conditions like preeclampsia and chronic hypertension earlier than traditional models. It has also helped uncover mental health issues. This Series A round was led by SJF Ventures. “The healthcare system considers maternal healthcare inefficient. Lōvu Health calls it solvable.” wrote another investor, Emmeline Ventures. (Continue reading: Pulse 2.0)

📌 US: Conceivable Life Sciences raises $50m for AI automation and robotic precision in IVF. Demand in IVF far exceeds clinic capacity. Conceivable’s answer: bringing robotics and AI to IVF via its AURA platform - automating over 200 cumbersome manual steps in embryo creation to make IVF more consistent, scalable, and accessible. With promising pilot data (including 18 healthy babies), they’re targeting a U.S. launch in early 2026. This Series A round was led by Advance Venture Partners and brings total raised to $70 million since the seed round in 2022. (Continue reading: Forbes)

📌 UK: Innovate UK backs Hormona with £100k grant for menopause diagnostics. Research cited by Hormona shows women often wait up to five years for a perimenopause diagnosis. This delay contributes an estimated £3.38 billion annually in lost productivity to the UK economy, according to data from the Fawcett Society. Hormona aims to provide fast, clinical-grade hormone testing using urine samples in just 15 minutes, potentially replacing blood tests. This funding will support development of the company’s AI-driven, at-home hormone tests, designed to help shorten diagnostic delays. (Continue reading: tech.eu)

🌟 Industry moves and strategic shifts

📌 ITALY: FemTech Observatory report lifts the curtain on women’s health innovation. For the first time, Italy has a map of its FemTech landscape charting 92 entities across the country — 79% with at least one female founder, a stark departure from Italy’s male-dominated startup scene. But the data also exposes how half of companies earn under €50,000 annually, 38% have raised no external funding, and 92% report facing online censorship when discussing women’s health. Author Valeria Leuti frames the report as a starting point for visibility and global connection — one that highlights both momentum and systemic bias. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📌 U.S: ‘The Bloodwork arms race’ - Parsley Health’s ‘longevity labs’ stretch diagnostic care into treatment. Diagnostics today often stop at data. But what do you do with that? Parsley Health wants to go further. They’ve launched Longevity Labs, a 100-marker blood panel for women, scoring biological age alongside metabolic, hormonal, and inflammatory markers. The strategy is then to pull patients into ongoing care plans rather than one-off tests. These UX-first test-track-treat programs are becoming the new front line in wellness. (Continue reading: Fitt Insider)

📌 U.S: FDA approves Womed's first device for Asherman syndrome offering new hope in reproductive surgery. The FDA just greenlit Womed Leaf, the first device in the U.S. to prevent uterine adhesions after surgery for Asherman syndrome (a condition where uterine scar tissue causes infertility and pregnancy loss). Instead of balloons or IUD hacks, this biodegradable film holds the uterus open as it heals — then dissolves on its own. It gives hope to patients stuck in the loop of surgery and recurrence and aims to be in use commercially next year. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

This week’s poll…

Last week’s poll was on the topic of taboo and stigma around women’s health. It’s good to hear that 47% of you thought that this had got better in the last 2-3 years, while 32% said it was about the same. However, 17% thought that taboo and stigma has gotten worse in the last 2-3 years.

👩🏽‍💻 Do you have a juicy question we could ask our readers? Let me know at anna@futurefemhealth.com!

🩸 Research and women’s health news

📌 U.S: Time to 'stop tolerating women's pain and suffering': Melinda Gates-backed research initiative raises $100M. Pivotal and Wellcome Leap are funding two big programs starting in 2026 to target women’s health research gaps — think heart disease, autoimmune illness, mental health. There’s still so much to catch up on: outside of cancer, just 1% of global health funding in 2020 went to women’s health conditions. (Continue reading: FierceBiotech)

📌 U.S: Discovery can’t wait: WHAM (Women’s Health Access Matters) launches 2025 WHAM Edge Awards. This new program offers $25k in unrestricted funding to early-career researchers studying sex-based differences in health. The awards are designed to fill the gap in the funding landscape, where early-stage projects often stall for lack of preliminary data. Focus areas include autoimmune disease, brain health, cancer, heart health, as well as newer priorities such as healthspan, endometriosis, menopause, PCOS, and AI. Awardees will be announced Oct 29, with a virtual forum in November. (Continue reading: FutureFemHealth)

📄 Policy watch: risks and opportunities

📌 UK: Pharmacies pilot contraceptive implants. Liverpool is piloting free contraceptive implants in pharmacies - a first for the NHS. The 12-month trial aims to widen access, cut unintended pregnancies, and make contraception less daunting than a trip to a sexual health clinic. Students are flagged as a key priority group. If successful, the scheme will be rolled out to other pharmacies across the city. (Continue reading: BBC)

📌 GLOBAL: WHO backs weight-loss drugs for obesity and urges change in mindset. Draft guidance from the agency is urging countries to take the condition as seriously as a chronic disease. A consultation closes on Sept 27 and could be a critical step in destigmatising usage worldwide. (Continue reading: Reuters)

✅ Hiring now

📌 AUSTRALIA: Chief of Operations, Institute for Eating Disorders, University of Sydney

📌 U.S: Business Operations Associate, Elektra Health

📌 U.S: Platform Manager, Investments, Pivotal Ventures

📌 U.S: VP, Global Media, Oura

📌 CANADA: Director of Health Promotion, Action Canada for Sexual Health & Rights

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

Anna

PS. FutureFemHealth reaches 8,500 decision-makers and professionals in women’s health each week - from investors and founders to healthcare leaders and corporates. To explore partnership opportunities or request our media pack contact: anna@futurefemhealth.com