ARTICLE SUMMARY:
A look at some of the recent fundraisings by women’s health-focused medtech companies. Excerpted from MedTech Strategist's recent feature on investments in women's health.
Women’s health has historically been a backwater of investing, either deemed risky, in terms of surgical and other medical products for the treatment of the reproductive system, or consisting of so called non-reimbursable “quality of life” problems like erratic periods and stress incontinence, with unclear avenues to payment and market. Traditionally considered, the market largely consists of products and services related to problems with periods, infertility, childbirth and its aftermath, leaving many women with other unaddressed health problems.
Hundreds of start-ups have developed one-off products to fill these gaps, but most face the challenge of raising market awareness as small companies offering piecemeal solutions in crowded categories that have unclear payment models.
In the past two months, four substantial investments in femtech make clear that those dynamics are changing. Flo Health Inc., founded in 2015, raised a $50 million B round that brought its valuation to $800 million. The Flo app, which, sold on a subscription model ($9.99 per month after a free three-month trial), enables period-tracking and ovulation prediction.
Maven Clinic Co. closed a hefty $110 million Series D round in August, bringing its total funding to $200 million. CEO Kate Ryder founded Maven Clinic in 2014 to build out a virtual care platform that fills gaps around motherhood, offering support around in vitro fertilization, egg freezing, adoption, and specialty support (for example, physical therapy, mental health, or lactation support after childbirth).
In mid-September, Tia Health joined the ranks of triple-digit funds for females, announcing a $100 million Series B round that brought the company’s total funding to $132 million. Founded in 2017 by Carolyn Witte and Felicity Yost, Tia says it’s out to treat the whole woman, in a fragmented specialty that treats women by their reproductive stage or anatomical parts. Thus, Tia fills the role of a primary care provider that understands not only women’s health, traditionally defined, but how other health issues particularly affect women.
And, tangentially, it bears mentioning that woman-founded and woman-led Spring Health also raised a unicorn level of funding in mid-September to support its virtual care model in mental health. Described as a “family mental health solution,” Spring Health solves problems of provider shortages and barriers to access on a global basis. Co-founded in 2016 by April Koh, Spring Hill announced a $190 million Series C round that brings its valuation to $2 billion based on total investment to date of $300 million.
Finally, in a different category, Elvie completed its Series C funding round in September, announcing that it raised $97 million from an investor group that includes lead investor BGF, with additional funds from an SPV formed by Westerly Winds and Hiro Capital, accounts managed by BlackRock Private Equity Partners, Octopus Ventures, and IPGL.
CEO Tania Boler co-founded Elvie in 2013 to launch “best in class products and services for women,” and it has created a brand through which it has launched two major products: a silent wearable breast pump (famously showcased by a décolleté model on the runway of London fashion week) and a pelvic floor training device and app. Elvie previously raised $42 million from its 2019 Series B round, and $6 million from its Series A in 2017.
The time is right for these companies because of the power of women—the expertise of female founders and investors in spaces they understand intimately—and the financial power of the primary health consumer. Women, who represent 50% of the population, spend 80% of the dollars allocated to healthcare. But we’re also having this moment because of the convergence of several trends across technology and business in general: the accessibility afforded by apps, acceptance of and reimbursement of telemedicine, and subscription models with monthly or annual payments. The genie will not be put back into the bottle.
Excerpted from “Women’s Health Enjoys a Tsunami of Investment,” MedTech Strategist, September 23, 2021.
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