Entrepreneur
‘Patients don’t have a voice’: how this start-up wants to redefine OB/GYN care
The term “gynaecologist” often carries an ominous stigma, conjuring images of awkward visits, cringe-worthy conversations and an overall less-than-pleasant experience within the office walls.
Many patients dread the invasive procedures and often leave with unanswered questions. The data confirms this.
According to a 2020 report published in the Commonwealth Fund, 75 per cent of women in the US are dissatisfied with their OB/GYN care.
In a study of 11 high-income countries, including the UK, Germany and France, American women reported the least positive patient experiences. They were also less likely to rate their quality of care as excellent or very good compared to women in all other countries studied.
Accessibility is also an issue. The average wait time for an OB/GYN appointment is 31.4 days, a 19 per cent increase from 2017.
Tara Raffi, an ex-McKinsey from California, waited six weeks to get an appointment. When she did get to the doctor, she waited over an hour for a five-minute visit and she walked out of the room with no answers. She would go on to see four more OB/GYNs about her recurrent UTIs.
“It exposed for me a fundamental flaw in the US healthcare system, which allows big healthcare players to make decisions and where patients don’t really have a voice,” she says.
“Nobody was building for the patient.”
Wanting to make a change, Raffi and her childhood friend, Carly Allen, launched Almond, a full-service OB/GYN care provider that combines traditional western medicine and integrative medicine to deliver better outcomes to patients and reduce the amount of time it takes to get their problems resolved.
“I left McKinsey and started Almond because I wanted to make it easy to get great OB/GYN care,” the founder explains.
“Our aim is to modernise the full-service experience and provide care differently.”
Their holistic approach is a big part of that. According to Raffi, the current patient experience is incomplete and, while traditional western medicine is great in some cases, it is not great for more complicated, socially involved care journeys.
“A great example is in pregnancy care, where women [in the current healthcare system] end up feeling like they’re not getting what they need and they don’t know why,” she says.
“Integrative medicine solutions, however, present a lot of solutions for some of the deepest, most painful moments in the pregnancy journey. At Almond, we are trying to integrate midwives, doulas and lactation support into the Almond experience so that women can have access to all the support they need.
“We believe that by being a source that brings together medical doctors and different types of practitioners to give a truly holistic view, we can bridge that gap for millions of women.”
Accessibility is also a big differentiator, says the entrepreneur, who believes everyone should find a provider they could talk to when they need to.
“Having that accessibility and convenience of booking care sends a message that we care about you. It’s what, I think, tells patients that their health is important to us.”
Currently, Almond charges users a US$250 annual subscription fee and bills insurance for the visit and labs. The subscription gives patients access to the company’s platform, care team and personalised plans.
Prior to their appointment, women have to fill out a health questionnaire and detail the reasons for their visit. They have the possibility of scheduling next-day telehealth appointments and message their care team whenever they need to.
With more than 130 million American women in need of better OB/GYN care, Raffi says the opportunity for growth is huge.
“We’ve started with our first location in Los Angeles, but we’re looking to expand this year,” she says smiling. “Seeing that we’re able to make even just a small difference for patients makes it all worth it.”
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Stanford graduates’ startup Clair is building a wearable hormone tracker for women, offering continuous, non-invasive monitoring.
The company, Clair, founded by Jenny Duan and Abhinav Agarwal, aims to build what its founders describe as a research-led, privacy-focused tool to help women see how hormone levels affect daily life.
Duan and Agarwal met in spring 2025 and began working on Clair shortly after. Over the past six months, they have been developing the technology and refining the company’s mission.
The device is designed to address gaps in women’s healthcare. Women remain underrepresented in medical research and clinical trials, leading to limited data and slower progress in understanding women’s health conditions.
According to Clair advisor and Stanford Medicine professor Brindha Bavan, hormone tracking in reproductive healthcare “improves our understanding of the function of and communication between the brain’s pituitary gland and ovaries or testes.
The pituitary gland is a small organ at the base of the brain that produces hormones regulating many bodily functions. The ovaries and testes are the primary reproductive organs that also produce sex hormones.
Hormonal health affects not only fertility and reproduction but also mental health, metabolism, energy levels and overall wellbeing.
Bavan said hormone tracking can “provide insight into menstrual cycle patterns and can aid with both diagnosing and assessing treatment for [various] conditions.”
“[Clair enables] patients [to] gain insight into their personal hormone fluctuations over different time periods,” Bavan said, “and share this information at healthcare visits to better understand and correlate any medical issues they are facing and avoid repeat blood draws.”
The device, which resembles a bracelet worn on the wrist, will connect to a mobile app, allowing all data processing to occur directly on the user’s phone rather than in external data centres.
“The device connects with an app so all of the processing happens on the app itself, not in a data centre like other devices. This is especially important given the current political climate around data privacy,” Agarwal said.
Clair also plans to pursue FDA approval and position itself as a medically credible device rather than solely a lifestyle product. The company is planning to launch a clinical trial at Stanford Medicine this spring.
Duan’s interest in women’s health and technology began as a Stanford undergraduate. At TreeHacks in 2024, she built apps focused on endometriosis, a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows outside of it.
She said a course on Philanthropy for Sustainable Development was particularly influential. “It was this class that sparked my interest in building a solution in [the women’s healthcare] space,” Duan said.
Rapidly scaling startups often make rushed hiring choices that disadvantage women, a recent study has found.
The findings draw on more than 31,000 new ventures founded in Sweden between 2004 and 2018.
Researchers at the Stockholm School of Economics report that in male-led startups, scaling reduces the odds of hiring a woman by about 18 per cent, and the odds of appointing a woman to a managerial post by 22 per cent.
Mohamed Genedy is co-author and postdoctoral fellow at the House of Innovation, Stockholm School of Economics.
Genedy said: “During those moments of rapid growth, even well-intentioned leaders can fall back on familiar stereotypes when assessing who they believe is best suited for the role.”
The patterns emerge even in Sweden, regarded as a highly gender-equal national context.
Founders with human resources-related education counteract these challenges.
In ventures led by founders with HR training, the odds of hiring a woman increase by more than 30 per cent, and the odds of appointing a woman to a managerial role increase by 14 per cent for the same level of growth.
Genedy said: “When founders have experience with structured hiring practices, the gender gaps shrink, and in some cases even reverse.
“This shows that getting the basics of HR right early on really pays off.
“When things start moving fast, founders with HR knowledge are less likely to rely on biased instincts and more likely to hire from a broader talent pool.”
Prior experience in companies with established HR practices also helps, though to a lesser degree.
It raises the likelihood of hiring women as ventures scale, but does not significantly affect managerial appointments.
The study additionally shows these patterns are not driven by founder gender alone.
Even solo female-led ventures display similar tendencies when growing rapidly, though to a somewhat lesser degree.
In female-dominated industries, rapid growth increases the hiring of women for regular roles but still reduces the likelihood that women are appointed to managerial positions.
“When scaling accelerates, cognitive bias kicks in for everyone. Female founders are not immune to these patterns,” said Genedy.
Midi Health has closed a US$100m Series D, lifting the menopause care provider to a valuation above US$1bn and achieving unicorn status.
The company, originally focused on virtual menopause care, says it will expand to what it calls lifelong care, adding cardiology, obesity management, autoimmune survivorship and longevity services.
Joanna Strober is co-founder and chief executive officer of Midi Health.
She said: “This is validation for the movement we’re leading.
“Women’s health has been treated like an afterthought for too long.”
Midi reports it now sees more than 25,000 patients per week and has insurance coverage reaching 45 million women nationwide.
To support scale, the firm is rolling out a proprietary artificial intelligence engine intended to slot into clinical workflows.
It analyses patient charts before virtual visits to help personalise care, automates triage and documentation, and reviews data on midlife women to refine protocols.
The company has also strengthened its leadership. Jason Wheeler, formerly in senior finance roles at Tesla and Google, has been appointed chief financial officer. He joins chief marketing officer Melissa Waters, previously at Meta and Lyft, and chief commercial officer Matt Cook.
Each year, about two million women in the US enter menopause.
Untreated symptoms are estimated to cost the economy US$25bn annually.
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