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 Maternal Health Mega Week, plus...
- Funding: Femtech vs Mentech vs Overall Digital Health
- Networking: Intros by Femtech Insider
- Startup Spotlight: Lunajoy, Pregmune & Ananya Health
- And more!
Maternal Health Mega Week!
What a week for matneral health startups in the U.S.! While we were pretty excited here at Femtech Insider HQ about getting to break the news of Delfina's $5.3M seed round, the company wasn't the only one that came our with a raise. Last week we covered 4 (!) companies active in the maternal health space who announced the closing of new funding rounds.
➡️ Delfina Raises $5.3M for Its AI-powered Pregnancy Platform to Address the Maternal Health Crisis in the U.S. and Beyond (More on this)
➡️ Maternal Health Startup Noula Health Raises $1.4M in Pre-seed Funding (More on this)
➡️ Zaya Raises a $7.6M Seed Round to Make European-inspired Maternal Care Accessible in the U.S. (More on this)
➡️ Wildflower Health Raises $26M to Support the National Expansion of its Value-Based Maternity Care Offerings (More on this)
WHY IT MATTERS
A couple of days ago new data released by the CDC revealed that despite increased public and governmental attention on maternal health, maternal mortality in the United States continues to rise with Black maternal health disparities still glaring. Shocking results especially as the U.S. already has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world. In addition according to the HHS, more than 30% of Black women do not receive prenatal care during the first trimester with 10% receiving late or no prenatal care at all.
Change is needed and it's great to see innovators in our community step up. Want to have a look at all our recent maternal health coverage? 👇
https://femtechinsider.com/category/maternal-health/
Funding: Femtech vs Mentech
In today's brief we'd like to highlight a new guest post by Frost & Sullivan's Reenita Das & Sushimita Das, we recently got to share on Femtech Insider. The topic? Funding trends in femtech with a special focus on femtech vc mentech and femtech in the context of overall digitalhealth funding. Below an excerpt.
"Recently, we focused on reviewing and contrasting men’s health versus female health and some enlightening analysis emerged. It is apparent that mentech-focused companies have higher visibility, get funding more easily and achieve unicorn status quicker than female technology companies. For instance, Maven Clinic started its operation in 2014 and reached unicorn status only in 2021 after it secured Series D funding and achieved a valuation of more than $1 billion. In contrast, HIMS (men’s wellness brand, specifically known for erectile dysfunction medication), launched in November 2017, achieved unicorn status with a valuation of €1.5 billion as early as January 2019.
Why is mentech receiving more funding than femtech? Is erectile dysfunction considered to be more important than women’s health issues around infertility, menstruation and pregnancy? Or do the venture caps, which are largely male, view the commercial opportunity of male products differently than female health products? While women make all the purchase decisions for healthcare, we would assume that they would be stronger consumers for healthcare compared to men. Obviously, stereotypical bias still plays a part."
Startup Spotlight! 🌟
Wanna know which startups get us excited these days? Below are a few of our recent (femtech-healthtech-ish) discoveries.
Pregmune: "We’re employing decades of clinical data, cutting-edge machine learning algorithms and the latest breakthroughs in reproductive immunology to understand the possible causes of unexplained infertility, miscarriages and IVF failures."
Ananya Health: "Ananya Health is building a portable cryoablation unit designed for every primary care clinic in the world. Our beachhead application is cervical cancer prevention -- even though cervical cancer is easy to screen for, 80% of clinics worldwide lack the infrastructure to treat at the earliest stages."
LunaJoy: "LunaJoy is a precision mental health platform that is specialized in women's mental health through all phases of life including adolescence, pregnancy, postpartum, infertility, miscarriage, loss, perimenopause, and aging. We deliver care by creating a specialized workforce to provide targeted psychotherapy, medication management + genetic testing, coaching, and holistic wellness."
The Week Ahead
- Monday: Check out Stanford Children's Health's Pediatric Innovation Showcase!
- Tuesday: Sign up for Springboard's Autoimmune Women's Health Forum: Autoimmune Health on March 30!
- Wednesday: Attend Women's Health Tech Wednesday by HITLAB!
- Thursday: Attend FEMTECH UNTAPPED Endometriosis, PCOS and Gynaecological cancers!
- Friday: Looking for a long read for the weekend? We've got your back! This week dive into the world of VR, AR & Co and check out this in-depth report on The Growing Value of XR in Health care in the United Kingdom.
