Brazilian femtech start-up secures pre-seed round in male-dominated VC space

A Brazilian femtech start-up has announced a female-led pre-seed funding round worth over US$190k to advance sexual health.

Feel, a company based in Sao-Paulo, develops sexual wellness products to help women have more ‘trust, autonomy and freedom’ over their bodies. 

The new round, reported by Forbes, was led by Brazil’s largest female angel investment network Sororitê.

Expected to close early in 2023, the financing is hoped to help the company expand its product and platform development.

Only 4.7 per cent of Brazilian start-ups were founded exclusively by women, almost 20 times less than those with only male founders, according to the Female Founders Report 2021, a study published by innovation hub Distrito in partnership with Endeavor and B2Mamy.

The report suggests that for 60 per cent of female entrepreneurs, the main challenge faced is scaling the business, followed by the validation of the business model (56.4 per cent), the lack of good connections with investors, mentors and other entrepreneurs (44.6 per cent) and the difficulty in attracting investments (38.8 per cent).

The investment gap is due to several factors, including gender inequality in the venture capital industry and the unequal allocation of capital between male and female-led companies, the study has found.

Around 72 per cent of the female founders who went through the fundraising process said they had suffered moral harassment, mainly related to gender and maternity issues.

Additionally, more than 60 per cent of Brazilian entrepreneurs said they have been asked by investors if they “would be able” to run the business, 45 per cent if they “knew basic technical terms” and 14 per cent if the company “has a man in the corporate board”.

With 90 per cent of funding coming from female investors, Feel says it will become the start-up with the largest number of female investors in the country.

“Our segment is particularly challenging because it addresses a pain realting to a taboo and a general lack of information,” Marina Ratton, Feel founder, told Forbes.

“There are very few studies focusing on sexual wellness, even though it is a pain th majority of the Brazilian population faces in some form or another.”

Erica Stul, co-founder and investor at Sororitê, said: “Investors tend to analyse the entrepreneur and their thesis.

“In this case, what Feel brings is an immediate connection to a pain that is very much connected to women’s everyday lives and that is not fully understood by male investors. It was a pitch [female backers] could relate to, and made total business sense.”

Feel offers a range of products dedicated to women’s sexual health and wellbeing “developed from constant dialogue with the women’s community” to help them become more knowledgeable around their own body and intimacy.