It is well documented that FemTech companies, often founded and run by females, face a tougher uphill battle to get investment. Sadly, there is a continuing, historical negative bias towards female-founded and female-led companies, as highlighted by female founders in Forbes last year. 

Accessing investment and capital is the first hurdle, which often faces blatant sexism by male-dominant investors and VCs, market misconceptions and a stigma attached to female-led enterprises.

But, the challenge doesn’t stop when funding is secured.

Notwithstanding the fact that we are finally starting to have open, honest and supportive discussions around topics that affect women, including birth, menstruation, gynaecological issues, menopause and pelvic health, amongst others, female founders are still not experiencing the same support when starting or running businesses that their male counterparts benefit from.

Like every business, the challenge becomes about growing a company that is financially and operationally viable for the long term, whilst staying relevant to consumers.

But that can be even harder if you’re not given the same level of support needed.

Despite the FemTech sector’s huge growth in recent years, the appetite for funding is still missing.

In my experience many investors assume the market is saturated due to the number of products and struggle to understand and distinguish between the various FemTech solutions. 

It’s clear that female-founded and FemTech companies do well to actually get off the ground, and thereafter it’s the way these companies navigate producing relevant, effective and desired products, whilst successfully balancing the financial accounts, that is the difference between success and failure in the long-term.

The journey Elvie has experienced is an example of the challenges faced in FemTech.

It started as one of the most well-known, trailblazing sector businesses in the UK in 2013, with its ‘taboo-busting’ pelvic floor trainer.

It later launched the Elvie Pump, a fully in-bra breast pump, in 2018, and most recently pivoted its product offering to launch a bassinet.

Elvie was initially a start-up success story; since its launch raising in excess of $186 million in investment, however, recent sales figures were declining whilst debts were rising.

The good news for the sector is that Willow, the San Francisco start-up that made its name with wearable breast pumps, is acquiring Elvie.

But the question remains, how did a first-of-its-kind FemTech company go so wrong? The investment was there, so was it a lack of financial and operating diligence that caused it to fall?

In the female pelvic floor space alone, Viveve, which raised $113M was delisted from Nasdaq in 2023 when it failed to meet its incontinence endpoints, Incontrol Medical, which was the first to bring pelvic floor health to the home, folded shortly after the pandemic, and Liberty filed for bankruptcy.

So what lessons can be learnt? Why is it so difficult for FemTech hardware companies to succeed? 

Firstly, more education is needed around the issues females face that result in the development of FemTech hardware. Education is tricky in today’s society.

Things are slowly changing on the back of the conversation opening up in recent years on menstruation and menopause, but there is still a long way to go and female conditions such as incontinence and bladder leaking are still somewhat taboo, embarrassing and not spoken about often enough in mainstream or on social media. 

What’s more, what I have found while developing Elitone is that the issue of incontinence, pelvic health and bladder leaks is often a secret for those that experience it.

The desire to keep it hidden, without discussing with friends, family or the medical profession, exacerbates the lack of awareness and understanding around the condition.

People are ashamed, but don’t need to be.

Elitone is on a mission to ensure women feel empowered to speak about what can become a huge affliction.

I started the company precisely because I was suffering post-partum and couldn’t find effective solutions on the market. 

We work hard to evolve and grow Elitone, to ensure there will always be a reliable, effective and accessible solution for the millions of women who suffer.

The way we do this is to ensure our financial and operational management is solid and provides the basis for continued success. 

At one point, start-ups were told “grow fast or die”, or scale at any cost and worry about profitability later.

That may well work for software and internet-based products, but by definition FemTech is hardware and we believe that approach doesn’t work.

Our success is based on old-fashioned common sense; we are careful about our costs, we are quick to shut down marketing efforts that don’t show returns, and everything is a test first.

We already know Femtech is harder to get funded, so every dollar counts.

So, although our growth has been slower than some others, the real secret to success is creating a product that is truly loved and works!

— Gloria Kolb is the CEO and co-founder of Elitone, the first non-invasive, FDA-cleared, wearable treatment for women with urinary incontinence. 

Elitone’s accolades include winning Best New Product by My Face My Body, Sling Shot, finalist in Women Startup Challenge, and CES’ Innovation Award. As an inventor with 30+ patents and advocate for women’s health, Gloria has been featured in Forbes as a Top Scientist Driving Innovation in Women’s Health, TechRound’s Top Women in Tech, Boston’s “40 Under 40” and MIT Review’s “World’s Top Innovators under 35.”

She has engineering degrees from MIT and Stanford, and an Entrepreneurship MBA from Babson College.