Beyond the Uterus — The Next Wave of Femtech

Companies like Pexxi are doing just this: starting from scratch by building a dataset with hundreds of datapoints on an individual woman and using this to recommend the right contraceptive for her unique profile. Wild.ai is also collecting data on individual women and is building an algorithm for personalised fitness recommendations that operate in... See more

“Femtech” has and continues to serve the purpose of creating a catchy reference to a business sector that primarily addresses the health and wellness needs of women -and people who experience similar health issues- through software, diagnostics, products and tech-enabled health services.

In this report, we dive into women’s health and the technologies disrupting the space, with a specific focus on reproductive health.

The first wave was pivotal in starting and encouraging the conversation around women’s health and normalising the use of digital health tools. Startups in this formative era predominantly targeted a younger, digitally-native customer, and so the next natural progression for the market was to start solving for issues experienced by older women.

And now, new technologies are making it possible for women to manage their health and well-being on a more precise and personalized level than ever before. Ranging from fertility tracking apps to post-menopausal medications, new platforms are giving the women’s health market a long-overdue makeover.

The spark that ignited the FemTech revolution goes by the name of Ida Tin. Ida, the founder of Clue (a period tracking app), is widely recognised for coining the term “Femtech”, with the goal of taking “female reproductive health out of taboo land” and starting a “reproductive health revolution”.

However, if we look at the total market, we see that out of the 4 biggest funding rounds in Femtech, 3 were raised by companies founded and built by men (Nurx, Hims/Hers, Ro/Rory). In fact, two of these four were initially men’s health companies, primarily selling on-demand pharma products, that then launched women-centered verticals (Hims/Hers, Ro... See more