Events
Meet the shortlist: Company of the Year
The third annual Femtech World Awards ceremony is almost here. And today, we’re excited to reveal the shortlist for Company of the Year, sponsored by Femovate.
This award exists to recognise a company that doesn’t just build a product, but shifts the entire landscape of women’s health.
The winner will be an organisation that has demonstrated exceptional leadership in addressing women’s health needs through groundbreaking products, services, or platforms – one that is not only advancing care today but actively shaping the future of global femtech.
Femovate, our sponsor for this category, knows this territory well.
As the global femtech incubator and a true catalyst for change in women’s health, Femovate uses design to fuel innovation across every stage of a woman’s health journey, from proactive prevention to early detection and personalised treatment.
With over US$2 million in design capital invested, 30 products launched, and 7 FDA clearances supported across their portfolio, they are uniquely placed to champion the kind of bold, rigorous company-building this award celebrates.
Congratulations to the shortlist and thank you to everyone who entered or nominated.
Company of the Year Shortlist
Founded by physicist Dr Elina Berglund Scherwitzl, Co-Founder and CEO, Natural Cycles created the world’s first FDA-cleared and CE-marked contraceptive app, establishing digital contraception as a credible and regulated category in women’s healthcare.
Achieving these clearances required extensive clinical trials and rigorous scientific validation, setting a new benchmark for digital products in the femtech space.
In doing so, Natural Cycles helped define the regulatory pathway for the industry — meaning any company looking to develop digital contraceptives today must meet the same high scientific and regulatory standards that Natural Cycles pioneered.
ŌURA, the creator of Oura Ring, stands at the forefront of global femtech, redefining how women understand and manage their health through continuous innovation, research, and responsible AI.
Oura exemplifies what it means to drive meaningful impact in a historically underserved space by delivering personalised insights across women’s health – from menstruation, to pregnancy, perimenopause, and beyond.
That leadership is visible across ŌURA’s growing women’s health ecosystem. Features such as Cycle Insights, Period Prediction, Fertile Window, and Pregnancy Insights are designed to help women interpret changes across different life stages using continuous signals including temperature trends, sleep, stress, activity, and recovery.
Rather than offering one-size-fits-all tracking, ŌURA brings context to the complexity of women’s physiology—helping members see how hormonal shifts can shape readiness, sleep quality, recovery, and daily wellbeing.
Youterus Health is transforming how uterine health is understood, diagnosed, and treated across underserved markets.
Operating at the intersection of research, technology, and care delivery, the company has built an integrated platform that converts women’s lived experiences into structured health data, enabling earlier diagnosis, improved care pathways, and more equitable access to treatment,
At the core of this innovation is the WOMB Index—a first-of-its-kind, narrative-based diagnostic tool that captures both quantitative and experiential data on uterine health conditions such as fibroids, endometriosis, and heavy menstrual bleeding.
This is complemented by an AI-enabled platform that supports multilingual data collection, real-time symptom tagging, and population-level insights, creating a new standard for how women’s health data is generated and used.
Hosted by Amanda Ducach, CEO, and Morgan Rose, chief science officer, EmaEQ
Healthcare companies have spent the last two years hearing the same advice: get AI into your product. Few have been told what that actually takes.
Most default to the fastest option. Plug in a general-purpose model, wrap it in a chat window, and call the box checked. It looks like progress on a roadmap slide. It rarely holds up once a real patient is on the other end of it.
We’ve spent years building AI specifically for healthcare, and the lesson that keeps repeating itself is simple: accuracy is not the same thing as trust, and trust isn’t something you bolt on after launch. It has to be part of how the system is built from the first line of code, not a feature added once regulators or users start asking questions.
That distinction is the whole reason clinical accuracy gets treated as a checkbox instead of a discipline. A model can sound confident and still be wrong in ways that matter enormously in a health context.
Knowing the difference, and building for it deliberately, is what separates AI that’s genuinely safe for care from AI that’s simply fast to ship.
On July 20th, we’re hosting a live conversation about exactly this: what companies should be paying attention to before they choose an AI to build with, what clinical accuracy really requires, and the pillars we hold every AI system to before it gets anywhere near a patient’s care.
The Healthcare AI Playbook Webinar: July 20th, 1:30-2pm EST, live on LinkedIn.
Register here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7482643171823509504?viewAsMember=true
If your team is building anywhere near healthcare, or evaluating what’s already in your product, this is the conversation we think the industry needs right now.
From AI embryo analysis in India to couples fertility care launching in the US, Korea’s women’s health startups are going global, and US investors are taking notice.
Vespexx, the femtech company behind couples preconception health platform Soonr, hosted Korea Femtech Summit 2026 on June 30 in Seoul, convening founders, clinicians, and investors from Korea, Singapore, Canada, and Japan to map the global expansion of women’s health technology.
A panel moderated by Kakao Ventures’ Jade Chung, an OB/GYN-turned-investor, captured the summit’s central theme: Korean startups taking on the world. On stage were three companies already building well beyond Korea. Vespexx, led by Co-CEO Scarlett Joowon Jung, is entering the US with Soonr; Kai Health, founded by CEO Hyejun Lee, has deployed its AI embryo-analysis software across more than 120 fertility clinics in India; and Endo Health, represented by the Head of Design Karlie Hyeonjeong Koo, has built Glow, an AI coaching app whose user base is 98% women and which is backed by US investors including a16z. Together they discussed what it takes for Korean startups to compete globally, where AI creates a real edge, and whether “K-femtech” can follow the path of K-beauty onto the world stage.
The program spanned the full arc of women’s health technology. Lindsay Davis, founder of FemTech Association Asia, opened with a look at where Asia’s femtech stands today. Dr. Juhye Lee of Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital offered a clinician’s view of how patient needs are shifting, arguing that women’s health is expanding beyond pregnancy and treatment toward care across the entire life course. Boram Bae, Head of Digital Health PM Part at Samsung Electronics spoke to how a consumer platform at global scale can connect women’s everyday health data with life-stage care. And Rimi Lee, head of the Femtech Center at KOSDAQ-listed diagnostics company Sugentech, traced the evolution of hormone testing from results read by eye to AI-assisted analysis, and pointed toward wearable continuous hormone monitoring as the next frontier.
Vespexx Co-CEO Scarlett Joowon Jung presented the company’s “dyadic health” approach on their ‘Soonr’ app, which brings both partners into fertility and preconception care rather than tracking a woman’s data alone, an approach validated by their legacy product, Signaling’s 800,000 users across Asia, as the company prepares for US launch.
The summit also featured Rachel Bartholomew, the Canadian founder of Hyivy Health and Femtech Across Borders, who built her pelvic-health company, and Megumi Kimura of the Japan Women’s Health Innovation Association, who outlined the investment and business models driving Japan’s fast-growing femtech market.
At the summit, Vespexx also announced the launch of Femtech Korea, an industry network intended to connect Korean femtech companies with global markets and partners, and to serve as a bridge for cross-border collaboration.
“Korea has world-class healthcare technology, but femtech has been one of its best-kept secrets,” said Scarlett Joowon Jung, Co-CEO of Vespexx. “The companies on this stage are proof that’s changing. We’re not just building for Korea anymore, we’re building for the world, and we want US partners and investors to be part of that.”
Korea Femtech Summit 2026 was hosted by Vespexx and co-hosted by FemTech Association Asia. The summit was sponsored by Sugentech, with additional support from Innerness and Octolabs.
About Vespexx
Vespexx is a Korean femtech startup and subsidiary of KOSDAQ-listed biotech Sugentech. The company operates Soonr Health, a couples-focused preconception health platform, and its earlier product Signaling has accumulated over 800,000 users. Vespexx is currently expanding into the North American market.
About Femtech Association Asia
FemTech Association Asia is the region’s first and largest specialist advisory and industry network for founders, investors, corporate partners, and ecosystem contributors, with a core focus on improving women’s health through technology solutions.
Women’s Health Week Europe 2026 has released its full programme ahead of the October event at The Emirates Stadium in London on 7–8 October, with 700+ senior decision-makers and 80+ speakers confirmed across what will be the organisation’s most ambitious edition to date.
For the first time, the event will run across two dedicated stages, each built around a distinct set of questions facing the women’s health industry.
The Global Stage takes on the macro forces shaping the sector: where capital is flowing, how AI is transforming diagnosis and treatment, the gender data gap, wearable technology, stigmatised markets, and the policy landscape across Europe.
Confirmed speakers include Merete Clausen (EIF), Frida Polli (MIT), Nichole Young-Lin (Google), Alison Cave (MHRA), Emily Darlington MP, Kerry Buckley (Boots), Tim Davis (LSEG), Henriette Hessen (Verdane), Hillary Ball (Atomico), and Christine Hockley (British Business Bank).
The Scale Stage runs in parallel, focused on execution: how to navigate regulatory approval pathways, survive the valley of death, build the evidence stack that wins payers and partners, implement AI into a women’s health business, and position for acquisition. Sessions include a reverse pitch format, in which corporates and investors pitch to founders, and a founder’s guide to getting acquired.
The programme also includes two Pitch competitions, one per day, across the Consumer & Tech and Medical Devices & Therapeutics categories, with 16 finalists competing on the mainstage in front of the full delegate audience.
Every session is case study-driven, with speakers selected on the basis of having lived the problem they are on stage to solve.
Women’s Health Week Europe 2026 takes place 7–8 October at The Emirates Stadium, London. The full programme is available now.
View the 2026 programme here
Pre-agenda pricing ends 26 June
Tickets are currently available at pre-agenda pricing, with savings of up to £600 off standard pricing. The deadline is midnight on Friday 26 June. After that, prices go up.
Secure your place: https://wplatform.co/summits/womens-health-week-europe-2026?utm_source=advocacy&utm_medium=ext_email&utm_campaign=whw-europe-26-femtech-world#tickets
Also at The Emirates: Women’s Sport Summit 2026
The day before WHW Europe, on 6 October, The Emirates Stadium will also host the inaugural Women’s Sport Summit, a dedicated one-day event bringing together 400+ attendees from across sport, business, and investment. Focused on the commercial side of women’s sport, the Summit covers the full sports cycle: money, product, and market. Where women’s sport means business.
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