Every Monday we share a quick “best of” from the week that was with our Inner Circle members. What’s trending in the Femtech Insider community and beyond? We’ve got you covered! In this week's brief we talk about how SteelSky Ventures Inaugural Fund, plus...
- Spotlight: Urinary Incontinence
- The Digital Health Tech Stack (Market Map)
- Startup Spotlight: Dama Health, LatchAid & Panakeia
- And more!
SteelSky Ventures Closes Fund I
Undoubtedly the big news last week was the closing of Atlanta-based SteelSky Ventures inaugural fund. With $72M total assets under management SteelSky is now the world’s largest venture capital fund focused exclusively on improving access, care, and outcomes in women’s health.
💰 WHO INVESTED IN THE FUND?
The fund’s limited partners include an impressive roster of healthcare strategic investors, such as the American Hospital Association (AHA), Eli Lilly, Blue Shield of California, MultiCare Hospital System, Henry Ford Hospital System, and Essential Access Health.
The fund has also garnered investment from top-tier financial institutions, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Motley Fool Ventures. The fund’s advisors include Carter McClelland, former Chairman of Bank of America and Chief Administrative Officer of Morgan Stanley; Rick Mazjun, COO of Stanford Children’s Hospital; Hurley Doddy, CEO of Emerging Capital Partners and Kim Meredith, CEO of the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation.
🚀 WHO ARE STEELSKY'S PORTFOLIO COMPANIES?
Fund I may have only been announced last week, but SteelSky has been investing in women's health companies for a while. Below is an overview of its portfolio companies to date:
Cayaba Care provides home-based maternal health services for underserved communities.
Lark is an AI platform for chronic care management, enabling women to make healthier choices and manage their conditions.
Twentyeight Health is an inclusive woman’s health telemedicine platform servicing the commercial market as well as the Medicaid and uninsured.
Motivo is the largest platform for therapist telesupervision, connecting pre-licensed therapists with clinical supervisors through secure video conference.
Raydiant Oximetry significantly improves the accuracy of fetal distress monitoring, reducing the 99% of unnecessary emergency C-sections due to inaccurate fetal monitors.
Zipline is a next-generation drone delivery platform creating greater access to prescription medicine and lifesaving medical products.
23andMe leverages an ethnically diverse and gender diverse data set to help inform the development of new drugs and therapies.
Origin is a digital-first physical therapy platform bridging the care gap from maternity through menopause.
Ruby Love is a period apparel company rooted in the belief that periods should never stop women from doing, being and going.
Proov develops clinically proven, at-home diagnostic tests and products to support a successful pregnancy.
Mae is a culturally competent care platform for expectant mothers of color.
ConcertoCare offers in-home primary care, virtual primary care and Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) services to dual-eligible seniors and those enrolled under Medicare Advantage.
Huma.AI is an analytics tool to expedite drug development, benefiting underserved areas such as women's health.
Bend Health is a virtual mental health clinic for women and their families.
Joylux is a menopausal platform offering life-changing solutions anchored by clinically proven, proprietary technology-driven devices.
TheraB developed Snuglit, an innovative blanket that delivers bilirubin lights in the form of a portable blanket so mothers can stay connected to their babies as they receive this life saving treatment.
Huh! That was a long list! But we're sure many of you will be interested in checking out a couple of companies mentioned above. 👀
💸 WHAT KINDS OF COMPANIES IS STEELSKY LOOKING TO INVEST IN THIS YEAR?
We recently checked in with Maria Velissaris to learn more about what areas in the women's health space she is particularily excited about right now and looking to invest in this year. Here's what she said:
"The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated many of the weaknesses that already existed within the US healthcare system, particularly with regards to women’s mental and physical health. The need for a new status quo has opened the door for new and creative solutions at a time of new technology and rising demand for access to quality care.
For example, we’ve seen broader societal acceptance of telehealth across a spectrum of conditions, as well as growing interest in platforms that treat the whole person rather than siloed point solutions. There is also a renewed focus on social determinants of health, health equity, and culturally competent care, all of which are deeply important to us at SteelSky.
We are particularly excited about new models of care that address these factors, including:
- Expanded innovation in conditions that affect women disproportionately or differently, such as heart disease, hormonal health, and aging-related conditions
- Tech-enabled, integrated care available at home, as seen in our portfolio company ConcertoCare
- Hybrid delivery models of care that incorporate artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide more accessible, personalized solutions for women and traditionally underserved populations (e.g., our portfolio company, Bend Health, which incorporates an AI-enabled clinical decision support platform to provide family mental health care)
We’ve seen a sea change in women’s health over the past few years, but there is a pressing need for further growth and we are always looking for the next innovation that can transform access, care, and outcomes."
Spotlight: Urinary Incontinence
Two weeks ago Jude, a UK-based startup focused on bladder care raised £2M in pre-seed funding (!). The company targets women aged between 40-60 with a mission to break down taboos in rapidly growing women’s health and ‘elderly’ care markets. Its bladder-care essentials include fully biodegradable, 100% plant-based liners, pads and clinically tested supplements. In a recent interview Founder Peony Li shared that when fundraising many investors told her that the space wasn't "sexy enough". Now she is on her way to "smash one of Britain’s biggest taboos and bring bladder care into the mainstream conversation".
And for us these news are of course a great opportunity to have a closer look at the urinary incontinence space and introduce you to a few companies active in it today.
📈 THE MARKET
In 2018 the University of Michigan released a poll in which nearly half of the surveyed women aged between 50 and 80 said that they sometimes leak urine. It comes at no surprise that the market for solutions addressing this issue is sizeable and is projected to reach $15B by 2025. And it is likely that the market will only grow from there as the number of those 65+ will continue to grow and is estimated to double by 2060.
🚀 THE STARTUPS
A big market, lots of opportunity, yet a very limited number of outdated offerings. Unsurprisingly we're seeing more startups moving into the space and today we'd like to introduce you to a few of them and the different approaches they're taking to solve for urinary incontinence.
Attn: Grace is a personal care brand disrupting the incontinence segment with stylish, sustainable and subscription-based products for women.
Innovo's product is a smart pair of non-invasive shorts that you waer for 30 minutes a day to treat urinary incontinence.
TillaCare's UriCap is an external urine collection device for managing female urinary incontinence (UI).
Privy has developed an FDA-cleared, over-the-counter product that prevents light to moderate bladder leaks before they happen.
ELITONE is a pelvic floor exerciser that tones pelvic muscles to reduce urinary leaks.
Renalis' CeCe is a mobile-enhances digital therapeutic for first-line treatment of overactive bladder.
inCONTAlertdigitalizes the current filling level of the bladder and sends an alert to the smartphone of the user when the level is too high.
Pelvital's Flyte is an in-home treatment for stress urinary incontinence.
Atlantic Therapeutics is a medical technology company that develops pelvic floor muscle strengthening and nerve stimulation products.
Renovia's leva is an FDA-cleared digital therapeutic that can help women train their pelvic floor muscles to help treat urinary leakage.
Our focus was on non-invasive treatments when researching companies to include in this overview.
The Digital Health Tech Stack: A Market Map
OMERS Ventures Christina Farr and Marissa Schlueter Moore have released an overview of the digital health tech stack producing the market map above.
"We’re doing that because funds we respect like a16z and Greycroft are betting big that the future of digital health isn’t just the care experiences. It’s the software toolset, i.e. the “building blocks,” that makes all of that happen in a more efficient and more scalable way. What remains to be seen is whether these tools that are custom built for digital health can migrate over to the enterprise. The big question on everyone’s minds here is around the Total Addressable Market or TAM. But the positive here is that it may be enough, at least for a while, to sell into other startups. As we’re seeing time and time again, digital health is selling into digital health and becoming unicorns in the process."
Buy, partner or build? Read on for a deep-dive into the space! 👇
https://ovsecondopinion.substack.com/p/introducing-the-digital-health-tech?s=r
Startup Spotlight! 🌟
Wanna know which startups get us excited these days? Below are a few of our recent (femtech-healthtech-ish) discoveries.
Last week we had a chance to attend Women's Health Innovation Forum in Scotland so we wanted to take the opportunity to share a few early-stage startups, who presented their solutions.
Dama Health offers women and clinicians personalised contraception recommendations using a genetic test and an automated matching system.
LatchAid is an easy-to-use breastfeeding support app which utilises cutting-edge 3D interactive and Artificial Intelligence technology to help mothers and mothers-to-be learn vital breastfeeding skills.
Panakeia provides comprehensive ‘omics' molecular analysis of patient tissues significantly faster and cheaper than other methods. Their offerings enhance both clinical diagnostics and drug development.
