Historically, women’s health has often been overlooked. Before 1993 women were not commonly included in clinical trials, and even today, there’s a noticeable gap in women’s health product innovation and funding.
Yet femtech — which describes a range of technology-enabled products and services related to women’s health — has helped elevate interest in the space, particularly in Europe.
While the US is the top country for femtech investment, six out of the 10 top countries for investment in the sector are located in Europe, according to Dealroom.
In 2024, VC investment in European femtechs climbed to over $368m across 46 rounds, nearing the sector’s previous peak in 2019, when investors committed $376m across 60 rounds, according to Dealroom.
Last July, Europe also got its first femtech unicorn in London-based Flo Health, which closed its Series C round at more than $200m. Sweden-based Natural Cycles also raised a $55m Series C round in May 2024, while Paris-based May Health raised a $25m Series B the same month.
So far in 2025, investment into European femtech is tracking similarly, although data often lags, with $141m raised across 11 rounds. This includes a $65m Series A round from Swiss-based infertility solutions startup ReproNovo and a $23m early VC round for Denmark-based investment network for women Female Invest.
What is creating this momentum for the women’s health sector — and will it continue?
Increased attention, decreased taboo
“What we’ve seen is an increased focus and attention on the topic of women’s health,” says head of life sciences EMEA at J.P. Morgan Elena Lovo. “That is not just related to conditions, indications and concerns linked with the reproductive system, but also more broadly to the fact that women are disproportionately affected by some of the more general chronic conditions, which include rheumatoid arthritis and dementia.”
You see people talking about issues like infertility, endometriosis, postpartum depression and perimenopause symptoms.
Lovo believes the women’s health gap report penned by McKinsey, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, which was presented at the beginning of last year at the World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos, has helped accelerate this focus. The rise in the use of AI in data analysis with applications related to health, which is starting to provide a window into gender-specific perspectives, has also helped, Lovo says.
Andrea Berchowitz, cofounder and CEO at Vira Health, adds there’s also been a decrease in the taboo surrounding many topics related to women’s health.
“You see people talking about issues like infertility, endometriosis, postpartum depression and perimenopause symptoms,” says Berchowitz. “This increase in the conversation has led to increased awareness and ultimately health-seeking behaviour which, in turn, drives the sector.”
Attracting investment
Lovo says that she thinks a lot of the recent success in the sector is due to an increasing focus from VCs.
“We have been witnessing the launch of new VC funds with this specific focus,” she says. Examples include London-based Goddess Gaia Ventures, an early-stage VC fund focused on femtech, and London-based Sie Ventures, an early-stage VC fund focused on female-led businesses which launched in 2020.
Investment in women’s health grew by 300% between 2018 and 2023, and is projected to reach $66bn by 2033 according to the WHAM report. It was released at J.P. Morgan’s Healthcare Conference in January 2025, and it outlines the business case for accelerating women’s health investment.
Chief financial officer at Flo Health Tamara Orlova says female health products may not be as intuitively understood by the historically male-dominated investment community, so the sector must provide a compelling narrative that can’t be ignored.
“Part of the reason for the momentum is that Flo and our femtech peers have been able to robustly define our equity story,” says Orlova. “With one of the most broad total addressable markets, we can demonstrate how we can scale and create sustainable growth without compromising our core mission.”
Holly Comyn, venture and growth financing lead at J.P. Morgan, adds that “showcasing proven unit economics and a clear product-market fit” has been key to femtechs being able to attract equity investment. Many of the businesses that have been recently capitalised also have a D2C or B2B2C subscription model, which has meant that they have been able to attract a wider pool of VC interest.
Comyn adds that this investment is being bolstered by venture debt financing, which may have previously only been accessible to startups in different sectors.
The role of data collection and research
Advancements in femtech are not limited to just women’s health. Orlova says the sector has encouraged safer and more inclusive data collection practices across other sectors, and thanks to the volume and detail of data analysed on women’s health apps, she is seeing more accurate predictive algorithms being developed in general healthtech.
The more businesses collecting and analysing patient data get funded and reach the patients, the more insights we will have available to show unmet needs.
“The drive to develop cutting-edge sensors and data analytic tools in femtech has enhanced the wearables and biometric monitoring sectors,” she says. “This has led to improvements seen across fitness tracking, care for the elderly and chronic disease management.”
Orlova adds that the net result of this is that the work the femtech sector is doing means that millions of people can lead healthier and happier lives.
Dr. Lovo agrees: “The more businesses collecting and analysing patient data get funded and reach the patients, the more insights we will have available to show unmet needs and the potential for significant advancements in addressing women’s health, fueling a virtual cycle where capital allocation decisions will be driven by a distinct path around value creation and defined patient outcomes.”
The WHAM report estimates that investing $350m in research on women’s health could yield $14bn in economic returns and closing the 25% gap in women’s health outcomes could add at least $1trn to annual global GDP.
Comyn says 2025 has clearly shown “increased dynamism in the space across investment, innovation and societal awareness,” but momentum still needs to be maintained to solidify women’s health as a priority.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/womens-health-momentum-brnd/
