We're thrilled to share our latest FemTech Real Money Talks episode featuring Ida Tin, co-founder of Clue and the visionary who coined the term "FemTech" in 2016 - a moment that transformed the industry and created a powerful community of innovators in women's health.
Key highlights from our candid conversation:
The origin story of "FemTech" and how one word created visibility for an entire industry
Fundraising challenges in women's health: "If we truly took women's bodies seriously, we would rebuild the whole world"
The critical importance of data privacy in women's health apps and building trust with users
The $1 trillion opportunity: McKinsey's recent report shows how adequate healthcare for women could transform the global economy
The future of FemTech innovation: from molecular-level technologies to biomarkers and continuous monitoring
🔥 Hot Take: "It's absurd that we don't have longitudinal data on our hormonal lives. Why can't we have predictive models for menopause?"
Ida also shared exciting news about her upcoming think tank "FemTech Assembly" aimed at articulating the crucial link between FemTech, economic growth, and planetary health.
👉 Whether you're a founder, investor, or innovator in the FemTech space, this episode offers invaluable insights into building impactful, ethical products that truly serve women's needs.
Listen to the full episode: [Link]
#FemTech #WomensHealth #StartupFunding #Innovation #HealthTech #VentureCapital #WomenInTech
What resonates most with you about the evolution of FemTech? Share your thoughts below! 🗣️
In this episode of FemTech Real Money Talks, we speak with Jas Schembri-Stothart, co-founder of Luna, a digital health and wellbeing platform designed specifically for teen girls. Jas shares the development of Luna, from its early concept during an MBA at Oxford to becoming a globally available app with over 100,000 members across 162 countries. Key Topics Discussed:
Jas reflects on Luna’s mission: "Teenagers told us they wanted a platform that felt relatable, holistic, and empowering. Luna was built to be that 'big sister' they can turn to—addressing everything from health to friendships."
In this episode, we speak with Tatiana Chavarriaga, the founder of Evie, an evidence-based Digital Therapeutic App empowering women to take control of their pelvic floor symptoms. Tatiana shares her inspiring journey from Colombia to Estonia, where she became part of a thriving startup ecosystem and launched her second product.
Key Topics Discussed:
Tatiana provides a fresh perspective on addressing a critical yet under-discussed aspect of women's health through technology and innovation.
🎧 Listen to the episode on all major podcast platforms!
In this episode, we sit down with Cintia Mano, a seasoned professional with over two decades of experience who currently serves as CEO at COREangels - a global brand of hands-on angels investing in early-stage startups through local portfolio funds.
Key Topics Explored:
In this episode, we sit down with Jérôme Michaud, the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of PhenomX Health, a FemTech startup dedicated to enhancing the vitality, longevity, and wellbeing of 1 billion midlife women. Jérôme shares his journey from a successful career at Procter & Gamble to becoming a FemTech entrepreneur.
Key Topics Explored:
Jérôme offers a wealth of knowledge on innovation, entrepreneurship, and the rapidly evolving FemTech landscape. His unique perspective as a business leader with both corporate and startup experience provides invaluable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs and those interested in the future of women's health technology.
Listen to the podcast on all major podcast platforms.
In this episode of FemTech Real Money Talks, host Elena Lipilina interviews Mayra Hurtado, Co-Founder and CEO of Prelude Health, a FemTech startup based in Singapore.
Prelude Health's flagship product, Hormony, is the first rapid saliva test specifically designed for women to measure their hormone levels at home, supported by a mobile app for monitoring hormone health during perimenopause.
Originally from Chihuahua, Mexico, Hurtado completed her bachelor's degree in international business before moving to Singapore for an MBA at Nanyang Technological University. She has a diverse professional background, including a ten-year career at Adidas, where she gained extensive experience in marketing and e-commerce.
Mayra shares her inspiring journey from corporate worker to femtech entrepreneur, highlighting how her personal health struggles during the pandemic motivated her to co-found Hormony. She explains Prelude Health's unique approach to hormone testing using rapid saliva technology, which allows women to conveniently monitor their hormone levels at home.
Key topics explored:
Mayra also discusses the challenges and opportunities in the Asian femtech market, highlighting Singapore as a strategic launchpad for health tech innovation. She emphasizes the need for more research and open dialogue around perimenopause and hormone health.
In this episode, Dr. Aznavour shares her inspiring transition from practicing ObGyn to becoming a femtech entrepreneur, candidly discussing the challenges of fundraising as a female founder in the biotech space. She explains how her clinical experience motivated her to develop a diagnostic solution for women suffering from undiagnosed endometriosis.
Endometriosis affects around 10% of women of reproductive age, diagnosis takes up to 8 years and requires surgery. Endometrics develops a solution for diagnosing endometriosis non-invasively by identifying specific genomic features of endometrial cells.
The startup Endometrics went through the Berkeley Skydeck accelerator, which helped Yana and her co-founder build a network of biotech founders and experts in laboratory diagnostics, set up a lab, and secure a pre-seed round.
Key Questions Explored:
Want to hear more about Yana’s incredible journey from idea to innovation? Tune in to our podcast, where she shares invaluable insights on navigating the challenges of femtech entrepreneurship, building a biotech startup, and breaking barriers in women’s health.
In this episode, we talk to Pam Miles, founder of Apothercare, the first company to conduct product testing on the vaginal microbiome.
Pam candidly shares her entrepreneurial journey in the femtech space, describing how Apothercare evolved from a personal project making cannabis-based products for menstrual pain relief to a scientific venture focused on vaginal health.
Pam recounts the challenges of navigating a nascent industry, including difficulties in securing funding and partnerships with academic institutions due to cannabis's legal status.
She provides insights into the surprising lack of testing requirements for intimate care products and Apothercare's mission to change that.
The conversation dives deep into the realities of startup life, with Pam offering a refreshingly honest perspective on the struggles of fundraising, especially in the femtech space. She shares her experiences with accelerators, pitching to venture capitalists, and the importance of having a strong support system.
Pam's journey highlights the perseverance required in pushing scientific boundaries and creating consumer demand for safer products. Her story serves as both inspiration and a reality check for aspiring entrepreneurs, emphasizing the need for financial backup and realistic expectations when embarking on a startup journey.
The episode concludes with a powerful message about the importance of honesty and mutual support within the founder ecosystem, reminding listeners of the challenges and rewards of being a visionary in an emerging field.
In this inspiring episode, Stiliyana Minkovska, a qualified architect, female-centered healthcare designer, and founder of Matrix, shares her entrepreneurial journey in the femtech space. Her work focuses on transforming healthcare environments and has been exhibited at the Design Museum in London.
Stiliyana's dream of studying architecture at the Royal College of Art took an unexpected turn when she became pregnant and questioned the highly medicalized and masculine nature of birthing spaces. This sparked the idea for Matrix—a digitally-enabled speculum alternative aiming to revolutionize gynecological protocols through women-led design innovation.
The episode explores:
Tune in to gain insights from Stiliyana's journey and be inspired by her resilience and innovation in the femtech space. Don't miss this captivating episode!
In this episode, we talk to Emma Murphy, founder and CEO of Eating Freely, a network training professionals in emotional eating treatment.
She candidly shares her entrepreneurial journey in the femtech space. As a world-leading expert on emotional eating and binge eating disorders, Emma describes how her personal experience with a friend's trauma inspired her unique approach combining psychology, nutrition, and coaching.
She recounts the harsh lessons learned from previously raising $300,000 in venture capital funding that ultimately failed. Emma opens up about the deep depression she experienced post-failure, but how reframing it as a learning opportunity allowed her to bootstrap her way to success with Eating Freely.
The conversation dives into the pros and cons of bootstrapping versus seeking outside investment. Emma provides a refreshingly honest perspective on the pitfalls of VC and angel funding that many founders overlook, such as loss of control and burdensome investor pressures.
Her wisdom reminds us that money management discipline and operating lean are crucial for bootstrapped businesses.
Welcome to FemTech Real Money Talks, a podcast about fundraising in female technology.
And my name is Elena Lipilina, I am a founder of Visible Sports and I am the host of this podcast.
Here we're discussing fundraising for startups in FemTech on different stages of their development, different markets, countries and different types of products.
We are going to speak with the start-up founders, we are especially interested in female founders. Also we are inviting investors, fundraisers, the representatives of accelerators, foundations and agencies that provide the research in FemTech and fundraising
Let's go!
