The ‘huge disadvantage’ women behind femtech phenomenon face

Wouldn’t tampons that boost women’s sexual health be a great idea? Welcome to The Daughters of Mars’ tampons, which use PH-friendly ingredients to help prevent vaginal infections such as thrush.

What woman wouldn’t want to be able to test her urine at home for breast cancer, or her menstrual blood for diabetes, endometriosis and human papillomavirus (HPV)? Hello, The Blue Box , an “electronic nose” that detects breast cancer biomarkers.

And show me a woman trying to get pregnant who wouldn’t prefer to breathe into breathe ilo’s handheld device instead of peeing on to a stick to learn whether she’s ovulating.

These are just some of the ideas coming out of “ femtech ”, a sphere devoted to technological solutions for health conditions specific to women, including maternal, menstrual and sexual health, fertility, menopause and contraception, as well as conditions that predominantly or differently affect women, such as cardiovascular diseases and mental health conditions.

Given femtech has about 50% of the global population as target customers – as well as studies showing women are likely to spend 29% more per capita on healthcare needs than men, while also being 75% more likely to use digital tools for health-related information – it is perhaps not surprising it’s predicted by experts to be the “next big phenomenon”.

On the surface, the signs support the hype. While still a small segment of the healthtech market, femtech is growing exponentially: currently valued at $28bn (£22.3bn), up from $500m a decade ago, the global femtech market is estimated to reach $60bn by 2027.

But inside the industry, things are far from rosy. Investment in femtech stands at just 1-2% of total health technology funding. And between 2011 and 2021, only 4% of new medical technology drugs relating to female-specific health conditions were approved in the US.

Gender bias in funding is a huge issue, said Mo Carrier, cofounder of MyBliss. Carrier said being the female founder of a femtech company put her “at a huge disadvantage”.

“At the last funding round I applied for, I was told – by a man – that lubricant was too niche to fund because it was only needed by menopausal women. He wouldn’t even look at our research. He was adamant,” said Carrier. “That funding eventually went to yet another workplace productivity app.”

Even once femtech companies have secured funding and their product is ready for the market, they face challenges that companies targeting men’s health do not.

Béa Fertility, an at-home fertility kit, was told by Amazon that it couldn’t sell its products on the site if it used the words “vagina” or “vaginal canal”. The word “semen”, however, was fine.

“We replaced the word “vagina” with “birth canal”, which seems insensitive and crass given we are a fertility product,” said Tess Isabelle Cosad, a co-founder. “But it was as close as we could come without being banned again.”

Knude Society, an online sexual wellness company, had to accept an insurance policy charging 150 times over the going rate – but even that cover took so long to secure that they lost out on supplying a national retailer.

Hanx, a female-focused sexual wellness brand selling condoms and lubricants for women that don’t interfere with their vaginal biome, found it almost impossible to source a payment provider.

“One bank refused us. Another stopped us taking payment within 48 hours of our launch. A third excessively scrutinised our legitimacy,” said co-founder Farah Kabir. “Then a party provider refused to let us launch certain products, even though a major competitor was able to do so.

“We can only assume these – and multiple other similar problems we’ve faced – are due to the nature of our business,” she added.

These companies are far from alone. CensHERship is a UK-based campaign to end censorship of women’s health content online. Research conducted by the campaign for the Guardian found 100% of the 35 femtech companies that responded to an online survey had experienced similar issues.

Seventy-five per cent had been refused a bank account; 60% had had an account closed, 50% faced “excessive scrutiny”, 32% experienced delays in processing and 21% were charged higher fees.

The impact of these developments was significant: almost two-thirds had lost sizeable revenue, 54% faced increased operational costs, 43% reported customer dissatisfaction and the same percentage had to delay their launch.

“The amount of time and money femtech companies waste on trying to resolve these issues significantly sets them back and, in too many cases, destroys them altogether,” said Clio Wood, a co-founder of CensHERship.

Even for the femtech companies that clear these hurdles, there are others to come.

“The censorship around publicity is ridiculous,” said Carrier. “The internet is awash with ads for erectile dysfunction, etc, but we’ve stopped even trying to post online adverts because they’re constantly being taken down or shadow-banned, which is when the search engine algorithms are secretly tweaked so no one can find you,” she said.

Valentina Milanova, the chief executive and founder of Daye, the company behind a diagnostic tampon, has had the same experience. “We spend up to £100,000 per month on Meta, Google, Amazon and TikTok but we haven’t been able to grow our online presence because every week we get blocked or banned,” she said.

But now female founders are fighting back – nowhere more so, perhaps, than in Britain.

With about 770 companies operating in the sector, the UK has the second-largest share of femtech in the world and is a breeding ground for organisations supporting femtech globally, such as Femtech Lab, Women of Wearables and the Oxford Femtech Society.

Rachel Bartholomew, from Femtech Across Borders, said: “The UK in particular has leaned into women’s health, with government funding and pockets of innovation in femtech companies, and the National Institute for Health and Care Research just announcing a huge amount of funding.”

Tara Attfield-Tomes, who created The 51% Club, said the onus was on everyone to support the industry.

“We’ve got this wave of women who feel empowered to invent and innovate, despite all these issues they’re suffering,” she said. “Women need these women to reach their potential. It’s on us all to support them.”