UK’s Top FemTech Startups Focusing on Women’s Health
We have searched the UK’s Top FemTech Startups Focusing on Women’s Health for you. First of all when it comes to medical conditions and experiences of illnesses, medical research has been historically focused on men’s bodies and their experiences. For most of the past century, drugs approved and released to market have been tested only on male patients, leading to improper dosing and unacceptable side effects for women.
Despite representing 51% of the population, women are still significantly underrepresented in clinical trials and research. This gender gap contributes to worse health outcomes for women, with much less known about female health conditions than those that also or only affect men. Endometriosis, for instance, takes an average of seven to eight years to diagnose, whilst figures show that five times more research is carried out into erectile dysfunction (affecting 19% of men) than into PMS (affecting 90% of women).
FemTech startups refers to software, products and services, and diagnostics that use technology to improve women’s health. By developing technological solutions for pregnancy and nursing care, women’s sexual wellness, reproductive system healthcare, menopause solutions, female oncology, and general healthcare, FemTech seeks to fulfil unmet women’s needs. The FemTech market includes wearable and clinical devices, diagnostic appliances, products, platforms, software, apps, or services. Still, despite the recent popularity of FemTech, only 17% of startups have at least one female founder, only 14% of VC investment goes to women-led startups, and almost 90% of investment decision-makers are male.
Below we present to you UK’s top 7 FemTech startups:
FemTech Startups List
Daye
Daye provides monthly subscriptions of period care products, allowing customers to choose from a selection of sustainable, organic tampons (either standard or CBD-infused) and ProViotics, probiotics for vaginal health. Founded by Valentina Milanova in London in 2017, Daye has already raised £5.51M in equity investment across two funding rounds. Its investors include Index Ventures, Kindred Capital VC, and Khosla Ventures.
Freda
Freda also adopts a subscription service model and delivers natural and environmentally friendly period products. These include eco pads and liners, and biodegradable tampons, made from 100% certified organic cotton. Freda’s founder, Affi, was inspired to start Freda after seeing refugees stuck at various border crossings in Europe on the news. Coming from a refugee background, she found that refugees women just do not have access to period products, and there is a lot of stigma around the menstrual needs of women in refugee camps. Freda secured a £150K equity fundraising in 2017 and attended the Business Growth Programme, a three-month accelerator managed by London & Partners that focuses on SMEs based in the Capital the following year.
Syrona Health
Syrona Health is a personalised digital health platform that t provides specialised support to women with chronic gynaecological conditions like endometriosis and PCOS. The founders, Anya Roy and Chantelle Bell met at Cambridge University, studying Bioscience Enterprise. Their negative personal experiences with gynae health care shaped their vision to create a patient pathway that would be kinder, well-integrated, and more evidence-based than the current public health offering. Syrona Health’s newly launched app Sora offers women a range of tools and services to help them navigate chronic gynae conditions, including symptoms tracking, telemedicine, expert insights, treatment options, access to mental health services, and a community of fellow patients to connect with. While a simple app may seem trivial to some, it provides a lot more than is currently out there. Syrona recently graduated from the KQ Labs accelerator, a programme designed for early-stage companies in the data-driven health sector.
Jennis
Jennis was founded in 2019 by Olympic heptathlon gold medallist Jessica Ennis-Hill and provides pregnancy, post-natal, and cycle-based fitness regimes via its mobile app. Jennis has been designed to close the fitness industry’s gender data gap, helping women train, eat, and sleep for optimised hormone health. So far, the company has raised two rounds of equity investment, totalling £750K.
Bia Care
Bia Care is an online menopause clinic that provides specialist support and advice for women experiencing symptoms. Bia Care attended Zinc Mission 3 (Later Life), an accelerator programme focused on startups aiming to provide a high quality of life to people over 70.
Elvie
Elvie aims to improve women’s lives through its silent, wearable breast pumps. Since launching in 2013, the company has secured seven Innovate UK grants and three equity funding rounds, amounting to £37.4M—investors include Octopus Ventures, AllBright, and Impact Ventures UK. Elvie has also attended numerous accelerators, including Tech Nation’s Upscale and Future Fifty programmes, and was named on four different high-growth lists in 2020 alone.
Kiteline
Kiteline is a London-based startup providing personalised content and virtual health coaching to employees affected by chronic conditions. The company has secured £370K funding led by SFC Capital in June 2021. Also, global VC Antler and a group of angel investors participated in the round. This FemTech uses the funds to accelerate its smart coach matching service and content offering, which will include on-demand wellbeing learning modules and condition-specific resources.
In a society lacking medical research, information and products in this area for centuries, these FemTechs have taken it upon themselves to minimise the gender health gap.
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