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Two weeks ago, I put out a call to mentor early-stage women founders. The response was incredible! Meet the selected five founders building some seriously cool stuff: Arushi Raina with Praxis Spinal Cord Institute, a successful venture accelerator that has already supported 36 ventures and seen 11 products enter the markets to reach people living with Spinal Cord Injury. The next step is scaling their Fund. Latchmi Raghunanan, Ph.D. with Maman Biomedical, making an impact on the fertility treatment experience by eliminating the need for injections during a typical treatment cycle. Mo Carrier with MyBliss, a condom brand made by women for women that within months of launching was stocked in SEPHORA, and named "Best Condom Brand in 2024" by Cosmopolitan and Men's Health magazine UK. Lorena Polovina, P.Eng, CPHD with MycoFoundry, creating high-end home decor grown with mycelium. The team (Nicholas Lin, Isobel and Joseph) are wrapping up The University of British Columbia e-incubator program next month. Rose Genele with The New Face of Inclusion, focused on inclusive leadership and the ethos: The more we invest in our leaders, the better work cultures we can create, and the better we can enable our teams to perform. Here's to the road ahead! #WomenFounders #StartupSupport #InnovationForGood #Mentorship #Entrepreneurship

💸 Flo Health Inc. has just raised $200M led by General Atlantic at a valuation of $1Billion+, making it one of just a few femtech unicorns & the first femtech unicorn in Europe 🦄 🤯 Many women in femtech are both amazed & outraged: Flo Health Inc.'s founders are men, most of the senior leadership are men, and the managing director from General Atlantic who led the investment is…shock…also a man. 🖊 As Sifted pointed out last year, even in femtech, it still pays to be a male founder. 🚀 I support many female founders in the femtech space and see firsthand how they struggle to raise money. A quote from one of Flo Health Inc.'s co-founders in TechCrunch really hits home: “I saw the challenges women face in healthcare and realised there was a critically underserved gap in the women’s health market.” 🤔 Sounds familiar? It should - I've heard the same thing from countless female founders who are told their market is ‘niche’ or ‘nice to have,’ or that they need a male co-founder to be taken seriously. 💰 It's not that we don't need men in women’s health - we absolutely do. We need all the smart and creative minds in femtech. But let’s face it: despite all the female founder office hours and support initiatives, money talks. And $200Million just went to an all-male founding team running a femtech company. 📈 The success of Flo Health Inc. demonstrates there IS a more than enough product-market fit, the market IS big enough, there IS a strong use case, there ARE enough customers. This should hopefully help female founders as evidence to provide in their pitches. It should also help other growth investors to see that the numbers DO add up in femtech. 🚺 We need more female-founded startups in women’s health & more investors who believe that women can lead this market. 🏦 Just last week, one of my private banks offered me the chance to invest $1Million in Kindbody, a U.S.-based Femtech Unicorn with a female founder. Given this news, I’m definitely giving this deal a much closer look! ♻ Re-share this post to help your network if this resonated with you. 👩🏽⚕️ Follow me Dr Fiona Pathiraja-Møller for more posts about investing in healthtech. Let me know your thoughts below ⬇ #femaleinvestor #femtech #femaleleadership #venturecapital

Did you know that less than 2% of funding capital in the U.S. is allocated to women entrepreneurs? We are in #LATechWeek to bridge this gap between investors and founders, geared specifically for women by women! No Pressure Networking is on a mission to foster connections, share insights, and drive investment toward the incredible women-led ventures shaping the future. 🚀 🙌 We would like to share a big thank you to our sponsor, GoGoMeds, for supporting this critical cause! GoGoMeds provides fast and accurate access to portable medications backed by a dedicated team of experts. Our digital pharmacy makes getting a hold of low-cost, generic medications simple and stress-free for employers, patients, and their pets. #LATechWeek #zant #WomenInBusiness #GoGoMeds #Entrepreneurship

Despite FemTech being heavily female-led, the disparity in funding between male and female founders remains striking. According to PitchBook data over the past five years, male-led FemTech startups have consistently outpaced their female counterparts in securing funds. Last year, 57 FemTech companies with all-male founding teams raised $731m, while 105 FemTechs with all female founding teams shared a total $408m.  On average, female-founded FemTechs raised $4.6 million per startup, while male-led teams secured double that amount at $9.2 million. Gina Bartasi Kindbody notably raised a record $191 million, showcasing the tremendous potential of female founders in the industry. Mixed-gender teams have raised $4.1m on average over the same period. 2023 marked a significant shift with women-led femtechs raising $7.5 million on average, surpassing the $5.7 million raised by their male counterparts, signaling changing dynamics in funding patterns. Top funding rounds include BillionToOne's $125 million and TMRW Life Sciences' $110 million raises, underscoring the substantial contributions from male-founded companies to femtech innovation. While there are signs of progress, these statistics underscore the urgent need to intensify efforts for true equity in femtech funding. It's crucial to continue advocating for inclusive investment practices that empower all founders to thrive and innovate in this dynamic sector. #FemTech #DiversityInTech #WomenInTech #EquityInInnovation #FemTechIndia

A timely round up on US Femtech (and female health) funding by Leah Hodgson published yesterday, following the $200m Series C/growth equity round raised by Flo Health Inc. There is a helpful link into further analysis on deal value v. deal count, and PitchBook also tracks the founding teams; female v. co-female/male. #femtech #femalecategory #femalehealth

✨ SheSpot is a FemTech start up to watch, according to investors ✨ Even with exponential growth in the sector, and a potential market size of half the world's population (!), funding into FemTech has a lot of catching up to do. Female founders looking to fund their game-changing ventures too often come up against societal taboos (particularly when it comes to women's sexual wellbeing), alongside market misconceptions that FemTech is 'niche' or merely a passion project. Thankfully, the landscape shows signs of improvement, with Europe's FemTechs raising $170m from investors last year (according to Sifted/Dealroom). As we see increased awareness around women's health and the incredible innovation across the sector, we're proud to be listed as a FemTech start-up to watch by Sifted, and the investment team at Calm/Storm. Closing our pre-seed investment round, we're excited to accelerate our growth and be part of the FemTech revolution! cc. Holly Jackson Kalila Bolton #femtech #startup #femalefounders #venturecapital #angelinvesting #seis #eis #investmentnews #venturefunding https://lnkd.in/erfQSFRS

FemHealth founders, raise your hand 🙋🏻♀️ This week the article below has been shared multiple times across the ecosystem. Along with some shocking revelations: Femtech’s founded by women raise 23% 𝗟𝗘𝗦𝗦 capital than similar start-ups founded by men 🤯 Kirsten Connell shared:  “Femtech might be for women, by women, but the funders are still largely men who don’t understand the scale of the problems femtech sets out to solve or the incredible financial returns on offer.” Here at Goddess Gaia Ventures you won’t need to explain the scale of the problem to us, we get it. Aya Suzuki, CFA Lauren Georg Priya Oberoi We want to know how you and your team are focusing on solving it and the great returns you will generate. We are building a $𝟏𝟎𝟎𝐦 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐝 dedicated to investing in Women’s Health, serving the four billion women worldwide. Share your deck with us here: https://lnkd.in/e8YJxEkR 🙏 And tag the women who are building for #WomensHealth to let them know. The Female Lead, Baz Moffat, Priya Oberoi, Lauren Georg, Aya Suzuki, CFA, Women's Health Talk, Helene Guillaume Pabis, Shlomit Steinberg-Koch Link to Article: https://lnkd.in/eKdf_Xbp.

Dive into the European FemTech landscape with Sie Ventures latest report! 🔍 They unveil a thriving global market set to skyrocket to $60 billion by 2027! 📈💫 But here's the thing, despite the majority of FemTech startups being founded by at least one female co-founder, the daunting reality is that all-male founding teams raise almost double the amount of capital. There is an urgent need to address the gender gap in venture funding. We are proud to challenge these VC norms. The stats of our current HealthTech Fund show that we allocate a 35% higher average initial investment amount per company to female and mixed teams compared to male-only founding teams. The report maps over 540 amazing FemTech companies. Amongst them, we are incredibly proud to support Béa Fertility Fertifa The Lowdown keleya digital-health solutions P.Happi® led by the formidable Tess Isabelle Cosad Eileen Burbidge Alice Pelton Victoria Engelhardt Dr Chiara Board! 💡💪 Don't miss it - dive into the full report here: https://lnkd.in/dpJ4jXBm #FemTech #WomenInHealth #InvestInInnovation #FemaleFounders

#London-based Unfabled secures €1.4 million in funding. The round will be used to grow the company’s in-house data science, which is a vital component of its B2B offering, as well as the #consumer-facing platform. Morgan Stanley, Exceptional Ventures, Atomico Angels, Founders Factory, Chai Ventures, SyndicateRoom, and 3 Sisters Ventures were among the notable investors who participated in the seed round. A large proportion of female angel investors joined from the #technology and #healthcare sectors. Among them are Fiona Pathiraja, a philanthropist and #healthcare investor, Elaine Groenestein, the first angel at Elvie, Shefali Roy (Apple, TrueLayer), and Maya Ghosn, a scout for Sequoia. Samano #claims that one of the main reasons for the #gender health gap is the absence of data that is broken down by sex, which results in a lack of knowledge and comprehension #regarding the health of women. Hannah Samano (formerly of Unilever and Kasha) founded Unfabled in 2021. It is a data-driven wellness platform that offers #tailored and curated solutions for women. Unfabled Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners Exceptional Ventures Atomico Chai Ventures SyndicateRoom Dr Fiona Pathiraja Hannah Samano Paolo Pio Lyndsey England Lois Day To share your startup story write us on - contact@startuprise.co.uk #unfabled #funding #eustartup