Susa Horvath’s Post

Congratulations to the Top 4 student ventures advancing to the Final Round of the 2024 Dempsey Startup Competition: BioLegacy CivicImpact.ai Joy Bucket MoodRoom BioLegacy aims to extend donor organ viability from 24 hours to years by utilizing patent-pending organ cryopreservation and electromagnetic rewarming technologies, while working with clinical partners to save more lives. CivicImpact.ai’s RFPGo, a GenAI-powered tool, aims to transform the documents cities use in the public procurement process to create a virtuous flywheel that creates more business opportunities, increases market competition, and improves the quality of goods and services delivered to all citizens. Joy Bucket created an affordable, clinical grade wearable health technology for safe and healthy pregnancies with the goal of empowering pregnant mothers against rising maternal mortality and morbidity in the United States. MoodRoom is a virtual, mental health and dialectical behavior therapy toolkit for managing mood and mental disorders, negative thought patterns, suicidal ideation, self-harm, and substance abuse. #UWDempseyStartup

Checking my emails this morning and I should be excited to see the subject line of Sifted: “Europe's first femtech unicorn”. I should, and yet I’m disappointed. Not to take away from the $200 million raised by Flo Health Inc. but I can’t help but think why didn’t that investment go to a female-founded business? Why is it that the first femtech unicorn - focused on female menstruation - is a product founded by men?! If I’m being positive then this could be the start of a femtech revolution - investment flying into the incredible businesses changing women’s health and the lives of millions of women. The reality? The system is just so broken. “Women aren’t being ambitious enough” “Femtech is too niche” “Women’s health just isn’t exciting enough for investors” Oh really?! Well, my ask is that Dmitry and Yuri Gurski now pay it forward: 💸 Support their fellow femtech founders with introductions to their investors 💡 Fund more research into women’s health to make the media - and the investment world - stand up and listen 🤝 Lend their experience to other founders on the journey to make their proposition stand out in the way that Flo Health clearly did 🪜 Use their platform and status to bring other founders up with them Huge congrats to Flo Health, but my word let this be a wake-up call for the investment world. Our 2% is shrinking before our eyes, and that’s why the work by The Lifted Project, Invest in Women Taskforce, and investHER-UK is both crucial and urgent.

This is good news for FemTech 🎉 Flo Health Inc. - the world’s most popular female health app - has raised more than $200 million from General Atlantic. This sets the UK-founded company’s valuation at more than $1 billion, making it Europe’s first FemTech unicorn. At the same time, it’s important to consider what this landmark deal says in light of the lack of funding for female founders. Given the investment is into an all-male founding team, when over 70% of FemTech companies have at least one female founder. We hope, however, that it shines a light on the huge potential in this space, along with the sector's many brilliant female founders. And, ultimately, encourages more investment in FemTech startups in the UK and across the globe! You can read more here: https://lnkd.in/eXnWU5m4 #FemTech #Womenshealth

The second baby vc Master Series is here, and this time, we focus on 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐒𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬. Register below!🧬 I've been in the VC/startup ecosystem for just under a year now, and I've had the opportunity to work on incredible investments in the healthcare sector❤️. It's been fascinating to explore the plethora of solutions emerging daily, from digital health solutions optimising hospital workflows to advancements in cancer therapeutics and drug discovery platforms. This passion for healthcare allowed me to really connect with fellow members of the baby vc family, including Ghita, Mariam and Zeno. To share this passion further with the rest of the baby vc community and beyond, we're thrilled to announce the launch of this second Master Series focusing on Healthcare and Life Sciences! 🏥 The Health and Life Sciences ecosystem is vast, encompassing various innovations in broad verticals from #DigitalHealth 🩺 to #Medtech💉, #Therapeutics💊, or #Techbio🧪. In this series, you'll have the opportunity to navigate the healthtech ecosystem and explore the nuances between these closely related yet distinct verticals. 💡 To provide a 360-view of the industry's future, each session will feature 𝐤𝐞𝐲 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 across Europe alongside successful startups from the ecosystem.  🚀For the first time, the Masterclass will be 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲. Practicalities: 🕝 4 masterclasses - starting on June 5th, 2024 ⌛️Wednesdays from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm CET 💻 Fully-online format 🧑🤝🧑 Open to Current Fellows, Alumni and Externals 𝐅𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐰 and I look forward to seeing many of you at the sessions!

We didn’t win #LionsLair—and that’s totally okay. What we don’t often hear about is the grit behind the scenes when we don’t take home the trophy. But that’s part of the story, isn’t it? The growth happens whether we win or not. We are incredibly proud of the winners who are tackling BIG global problems. 🥇 Grand prize: Infinite Harvest Technologies is making the environment more sustainable. 🥈 Second place: Yellowbird Diagnostics, Inc. is pushing the boundaries of early cancer detection. 🥉 Third place: Maman Biomedical is addressing women’s health through menopause. 🏆 People’s Choice: DOUBL is revolutionizing how bras are designed for women and we are FAN GIRLS! Being in the Top 10 with such visionary entrepreneurs—from doctors to engineers—is truly humbling. To know that our mission to support caregivers stands alongside these groundbreaking innovations shows that caregiving is equally a global issue. We are so proud of our cohort, and we’ll always be rooting for them as they continue to change the world. So, to those who say Canadians “go for bronze”—we challenge that notion. From what we've seen, Canada is filled with nothing but gold, maybe we’re just too humble to admit it! 🇨🇦 Thank you to Innovation Factory , the winners, and everyone involved in this unforgettable journey. We are proud of our cohort, and ready to keep pushing for gold as we all work to change the world. What do you think? Are we Canadians humble. Let’s keep the conversation going. #Entrepreneurship #Innovation #Caregiving #Sustainability #LionsLair2024 #CanadaInnovation #StartupEcosystem

It’s been really interesting to see the debate around Flo’s record $200m funding this week 💰 As a femtech company founded by men, led by men, and funded by men, it’s no surprise that the news that Flo is the first women’s health app to achieve unicorn status has raised concerns about the lack of funding received by women-led businesses. Female-founded startups account for 2% or less of VC funding - making raises such as Grace Beverley’s TALA's recent £5m round all the more important. We were at risk earlier this year of cutting out a huge number of female angel investors with the push to increase the threshold to be a HNWI - and we know that female investors are more likely to invest in female-founded companies. So what does the news from Flo represent? There’s an argument to be made that investors who see health startups such as Flo securing such a significant investment might lead to attitude shifts in the wider market. And we need more money injected into women’s health - so if this is happening, does it really matter who is leading the charge? Is it actually a good thing for men to be engaging in women’s health? Ultimately, the news demonstrates that we still aren’t seeing enough female-founded businesses gaining investment - and that needs to change. But, anything that furthers investigation into women’s health can’t be a bad thing - right? Abbianca Nassar née Makoni wrote a great piece about the debate in UKTN I felt highlighted the debate well 👇

30 Top Health Tech Startups & Companies To Watch 2024 Noteworthy changes are taking place in the healthcare industry. Many health companies use the newest technology to develop remarkable ideas that will change the field. This tsunami of innovative ideas is changing healthcare delivery and experience. The healthcare market was valued at 7.9 trillion Dollars the previous year. Let's examine 30 innovative health tech startups and enterprises changing this year. for more information, visit; https://lnkd.in/gxaMN55i #owebesttechnology #appdevelopmentcompany #appdevelopment #HealthTech #HealthcareInnovation #MedTech #HealthStartups #DigitalHealth #HealthCareRevolution #TechInHealth #FutureOfHealth #HealthCareTech #HealthInnovation #HealthTech2024 #MedStartups #HealthCareTransformation #SmartHealth #HealthTechNews #HealthCareStartups #InnovativeHealth #HealthTechTrends #HealthTechInnovation #HealthTechCompanies #HealthTechStartups

September is #WorldAlzheimersMonth! Many recent advances are changing the course of Alzheimer's disease. StartUp Health's Alzheimer's Moonshot brings together founders and CEOs globally to accelerate breakthroughs in preventing, diagnosing, and managing Alzheimer's disease. This initiative aims to break down the silos and foster meaningful collaboration - a synergy of research and knowledge. More here: https://ow.ly/Cn7q50TtHbs $INM #Alzheimers #Research #Collaboration Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation StartUp Health Gates Ventures

A great post by Tara Attfield-Tomes A great example of how FemTech is highly investable. I believe this is such an exciting time for the FemTech industry. The FemTech industry stands out as a promising investment opportunity, look at all the technologies including FIT MAMA which provide a solution to many women’s health problems. FemTech bridges the gap in healthcare. FIT MAMA is on a mission to improve maternal health provisions, as we know how poor and inconsistent these services are currently in the UK. This is just one example. Innovations like FIT MAMA empower women with better health management and personalised care, improving quality of life. But also having such an impact on the economy; more women back to work in full health and less money spent in the NHS on fixing these preventable health outcomes. Look at the governments manifesto and the NHS objectives; both emphasise personalised health care and preventative care. FIT MAMA and other FemTech industries align perfectly to these objectives. Finally, investing in female-founded FemTech will support gender equality in healthcare (which sadly exists) and empower women to take charge of their health. There are so many positives for investment in FemTech, let’s hope this is the start of great things to come. #femtech #femalefounder #raisingseis #investment #healthcare #healthtech #healthinnovation

How does the SUD program address substance use disorder differently? Hanna Adeyema, director of MIT Bootcamps, says, "Traditionally, innovation programs in the substance use disorder space focus on entrepreneurship and business courses for researchers and inventors. These courses focus on knowledge, rather than skills and practical application, and omit an important piece of building a business — it takes an entire ecosystem to build a successful startup, particularly in the health care space." Read more about how the SUD Ventures program is contributing to innovation in substance use disorder in MIT News at https://bit.ly/3XzlJ4C