Entrepreneur
Why investing in women’s health innovation is a smart bet
By David Buller, Managing Partner at KELES
The macro opportunity: women are half of the population
In 2024 alone, women’s health start-ups raised a record $2.6 billion, up 55 per cent from the previous year.
In addition to increasingly recognised health needs in menopause, fertility and female-specific cancers, there are conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s, to name a few, that affect women disproportionately as compared to men, which then leads to the creation of large care gaps.
Whilst conventional care pathways, medications, dosages and treatments are often geared to accommodate males, this has created gaps in clinical pathway guidelines for women and their health.
The opportunity for transforming and investing in women’s health is growing. Where should investors focus capital, and what will substantially improve women’s health for the future?
Venture Capital will back scalable, system-level solutions
Despite the growing attention on women’s health and FemTech, successful venture-backed companies need to attract the female healthcare population.
The technologies that do this will be those that are payor-reimbursed (government, insurance or employer), can embed into patient care pathways, address wide-scale unmet needs, and have a clear exit strategy. Women’s health companies, just like any other digital health venture, need to consider how they integrate with the health system as a whole and forge a clear route to market.
The best companies will drive the new standard of care and address critical needs, for example, those improving essential surgeries, or developing new therapies, and those that substantially increase quality of life for a significant number of women.
With these considerations about scaling and prevalence in mind, the opportunities for founders and investors are great. What kind of technologies should we consider?
- Those combating major gaps in existing care pathways. For example, endometriosis affects an estimated 10 per cent of women, yet diagnostic delay still averages eight years. Technologies that shorten diagnosis transform millions of lives and are rapidly adopted by payers.
- AI and platform technologies. Utilising the latest AI capabilities can improve accuracy and speed in health, especially in diagnostics and drug development, and support the vision of care for women. We must ensure that data is representative of women and female patient groups. Greater assimilation and integration of truly representative datasets can allow more informed care decisions, and can enhance female patient selection for clinical trials.
- High-prevalence conditions and health issues. Some conditions affect a startling number of women and can contribute to significant strains on global health systems. Fertility and pregnancy, post-partum depression, endometriosis, menopause and osteoporosis, breast cancer and diabetes are just some examples of highly prevalent and widespread health needs. AI and tech enable a huge step change in addressing issues that were completely undertreated.
Building a women’s health ecosystem that thrives: future innovation will originate from women
Achieving a healthy ecosystem of market-ready innovations in women’s health requires more than collaboration between start-ups, healthcare providers and investors. It needs a momentum of female-led founders to break the barriers, and get the right tech, innovation and products to the women who need them.
Breakthrough ideas often come from those who have experienced the pain points firsthand. Yet, if we look at women’s health, fewer than one in five digital-health start-ups is founded by a woman, and the percentage drops further in med-tech and biotech.
Encouragingly, the raw talent already exists. Across Europe, women already dominate many healthcare practitioner positions and master’s level qualifications in health and life sciences, and in many EU countries, they hold a slight majority of PhDs in these fields. Cities such as Lisbon, Copenhagen and Barcelona are making progress on gender balance among principal research investigators.
The challenge is in the translation: channeling the expertise into biotech and health companies that will scale well and make a significant impact on women’s health. So we should continue:
- Encouraging women in the scientific and healthcare ecosystem to experiment and innovate, and bring new technologies to market.
- Building an inclusive environment for female founders.
- Investing in female-led companies producing scalable solutions for women’s health.
Measuring returns by better health: an investor’s framework
Adhering to strong ethical principles is a core foundation of any good investment in healthcare. By embedding these principles into an investment framework, we are more likely to see capital deliver sustainable, long-term value.
At KELES, we evaluate our portfolio companies against core criteria. Applying these criteria to solutions for women’s health, companies can drive significant innovation and progress to support equitable healthcare. Many women’s health companies have the opportunity to meet and exceed these principles, and drive significant innovation and progress to support equitable healthcare.
- Accessibility – does the solution broaden access and availability of healthcare for women?
- Ethical use of data – is sensitive health data handled with the highest standards of privacy and fairness, and includes truly representative data?
- Improved outcomes – does the technology enhance healthcare outcomes for women?
By tying capital to these measurable goals in women’s health, and prioritising investments in women-led ventures that show clear market value, we can accelerate innovation that truly meets women’s healthcare needs – and has real impact worldwide.
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.
Women’s telehealth company Wisp has acquired TBD Health, a sexual health platform, in its first acquisition and expansion beyond direct-to-consumer care.
The deal adds TBD Health’s diagnostics infrastructure and hospital partnerships to Wisp’s platform, which the company says serves 1.8 million patients across the US.
Wisp, which describes itself as the largest women’s telehealth company in the US, said the acquisition marks a move into enterprise and hybrid care models that combine consumer-first digital care with hospital systems, enterprises and public health programmes.
TBD Health operates a sexual health and diagnostics platform across all 50 states, combining routine STI and HIV testing, virtual clinical support, and partnerships that help remove cost barriers for patients.
The company has established relationships with Mount Sinai Health System, San Francisco AIDS Foundation and Planned Parenthood Direct.
Monica Cepak, chief executive of Wisp, said: “This acquisition reflects where healthcare is going and where women have been left behind.
“TBD Health brings the infrastructure and partnerships that allow us to move into hybrid and enterprise care quickly, while staying true to Wisp’s patient-first approach.
“Together, we are making preventative care more accessible especially to women and integrating them into proven care models.”
The companies say gaps in access remain in sexual health and preventive care, particularly for women.
While women account for 19 per cent of new HIV diagnoses in the US, they remain underserved by existing prevention models, which have historically been designed and marketed for men.
Of the 2.4 million people eligible for PrEP, a medicine that reduces the risk of getting HIV, only around 25 per cent are currently enrolled.
Daphne Chen, co-founder of TBD Health, said: “By joining forces with Wisp, we can provide partners with a turnkey solution for PrEP along with sexual health diagnostics and care that integrates seamlessly into their existing workflows, ensuring no patient falls through the cracks.”
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