👩🏽⚕️ In the Spotlight: Lifestage-Specific Women's Health Solutions
FemWealth Issue #55
Happy Sunday, FemWealth Friends!
It is wonderful and hopeful to see a proliferation of women’s health solutions catering to specific life stages and a heightened interest from investors to back visionary founders who innovate in this space.
This week, which marked the annual World Health Day (April 7), was particularly good for women’s health, with multiple startups raising significant investment rounds and launching new products.
Evernow, a menopause telehealth startup co-founded by Dr. Alicia Jackson, is one of the most noteworthy. It has just raised $28.5 million in a Series A funding round to expand women’s access to science-based menopause care.
“What women do in perimenopause and menopause can impact the rest of their lives. They should have access to the best possible care and treatments.”
“Even women of incredible means cannot get any help here. Even women with incredible resources have a very hard time navigating this and getting really great health care.” - Alicia Jackson, Evernow Founder and CEO
Alongside a celebrity lineup including SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell; Morgan Stanley executive Carla Harris; actors and entrepreneurs Gwyneth Paltrow and Cameron Diaz; and soccer star Abby Wambach, institutional investors NEA, 8VC, Refactor Capital, and Coelius Capital have backed the startup. Read more about Evernow here and here.
Another notable female-led startup, Future Family, founded and led by Claire Tomkins, has raised $25 million in Series B funding to help want-to-be parents finance fertility treatments. In 2021, it saw a 300% jump in the volume of patients that it is financing.
“It’s never been harder to start a family than in 2022 just between the age-related infertility and the cost of getting care is so high. Future Family offers a unique solution, a buy now, pay later for healthcare, that makes sense and has easy monthly plans.” - Claire Tomkins
Peanut, a social networking app for women founded by Michelle Kennedy, has announced it partnered with 100 experts, including doulas, psychologists, therapists, sex coaches, and sleep consultants, to launch a new “Peanut Pro” expansion designed to give women access to vetted information. According to the founder, the long-term vision of Peanut is “to serve women at every life stage so that three women in the same family at varying stages of womanhood can all find community and support on the app.”
“We want to break down huge fees into manageable, accessible subscriptions and one-off payments. Not everyone can afford $200 for one-on-one consultations across sleep training or sex therapy, so if we instead provide access to short form Q&As or online courses, suddenly support is decentralized. And, whilst we do that, women with expertise, our Pros, get paid regularly, with less invisible labor because their content is valued.” - Michelle Kennedy
Conceive, a US-based fertility tech startup founded and led by Lauren Berson, has launched a digital fertility program to connect people who want to start families — with each other, providers, curriculum, and coaches.
Bonus content: A beautiful and essential story about health advocacy, written by GOAT athlete Serena Williams; plus an excellent podcast and book about female anatomy by Rachel Gross.
👉🏾 How Serena Williams Saved Her Own Life - In the US, Black women are nearly three times more likely to die after childbirth than white women, even though many of these deaths are preventable. Serena Williams was almost one of them. The superstar tennis player shares her story of advocating for herself to receive life-saving medical intervention following the birth of her daughter.
“Giving birth to my baby, it turned out, was a test for how loud and how often I would have to call out before I was finally heard.”
“Being heard and appropriately treated was the difference between life or death for me.” - Serena Williams
📚 Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage by Rachel Gross
🎧 The Vagina and History with Rachel Gross
FemWealth Favorites ❤️
Startups: 💸 Elizabeth Stark’s Lightning Labs Raises $70 Million To ‘Bitcoinize’ The U.S. Dollar - The startup co-founded and led by Elizabeth Stark plans to turn the Bitcoin blockchain into a network capable of transacting trillions of dollars in volume annually. Read more here.
💸 Ellevest Raises $53M in Series B Funding Round Backed by a Powerful Roster of Women Investors - Co-founded and led by Sallie Krawcheck, Ellevest is a New York-based financial company focused on women. It offers digital investing tools, banking services, career and money coaching, and private wealth management for high net worth clients. The round, co-led by BMO and Contour Venture Partners, included funding from women-led investors, Halogen Ventures, Cleo Capital, The Venture Collective, and the LGBTQIA+ investment syndicate Gaingels. 90% of the Series B round’s investors are women and underrepresented investors, contributing 68% of total funds. Read more here.
“Ellevest was built by women, for women. It is also funded by women, with 360 women and underrepresented investors participating in this funding round. This group recognizes that women have been disproportionately losing financial ground, and that's bad news for all of us. Ellevest has a key role to play in addressing this issue: to help women — and their families — rewrite their financial narratives and thrive.” - Sallie Krawcheck
“Wonderful things happen when women support women in business. That's why we are proud to stand behind a company that is focused on giving women the tools they need to thrive financially.” - Sarah Kunst, Managing Director at Cleo Capital
💸 Eleanor Health Raises $50 Million to Combat Historic Mental Health Crisis and Expand Proven Value-Based Care Model for Addiction and Mental Health - Eleanor Health was co-founded by Corbin Petro (CEO), Nzinga Harrison (Chief Medical Officer), and Srishti Mirchandani (V.P. Growth Operations).
💸 Starting With 30 Designers and 15 Retail Partners, This 26-Year-Old Founder Wants to Build the LVMH of Africa - The Folklore, founded and led by Amira Rasool, has secured $1.7 million in pre-seed funding to launch a B2B service connecting retailers with designers and brands from the continent. It aims to bring African fashion designers and brands to a global market. Rasool is one of fewer than 200 Black women entrepreneurs to raise at least $1 million in venture funding.
VC: 💸 Imaginary Ventures Grows Funds Under Management to $1 Billion, Announces $500 Million Fund III and Significant Team Growth. The VC firm co-founded by Natalie Massenet (founder of Net-a-Porter) invests in consumer technology startups. Its portfolio includes companies such as SKIMS, Glossier, Daily Harvest, and Stripe.
“We are energized by the innovation happening across the consumer landscape right now. Fund III allows IMAGINARY to continue backing visionary founders as they build the brands and technologies that bridge the gap between the digital and physical world and redefine the way we eat, live and shop.” - Natalie Massenet
💸 Voyager Ventures Raises a $100 Million Decarbonization Fund - The fund led by Sierra Peterson and Sarah Sclarsic has launched its debut fund focused on North America-based climate tech companies.
Women’s Wealth: 💸 The Top Richest Women In The World 2022 - The Forbes billionaires’ list includes newcomers such as Rihanna, Barbados’ first billionaire; Melanie Perkins, co-founder of design startup Canva; and Melinda French Gates.
💄The Richest Woman In The World 2022 - L’Oréal heiress and vice-chair of the board, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers of France, is the planet’s richest woman for the second year in a row, according to Forbes’ list of the World’s Billionaires. Worth an estimated $74.8 billion, Bettencourt Meyers is the fourteenth wealthiest person in the world.
Philanthropy: 🌎 MacKenzie Scott Is Expanding Her $12.4 Billion Giving Spree Globally - The billionaire philanthropist has increased her donations to nonprofits in countries ranging from Brazil to Micronesia.
Justice: 👏🏽 Ketanji Brown Jackson becomes the first Black woman to be confirmed to the Supreme Court - Ketanji Brown Jackson shattered a historic barrier by securing her place as the first Black woman justice after being confirmed by the US Senate.
Things to Ponder
Famous women join the crypto hustle, but it could cost their fans - Celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Mila Kunis are pushing women to invest in NFTs. Still, critics see in some celebrity-led NFT projects the revival of the girlboss, an archetype of self-serving feminism from the 2010s.
“Despite the upbeat rhetoric from celebrity investors, some people say efforts marketed as financial inclusion are replicating the same power structures that kept marginalized women from making real money off the last tech boom.”
Some women shared the messages they get on Instagram. It’s not pretty. - A study that analyzed over 8,700 DMs to five high-profile women on Instagram finds the platform failed to act on 90% of the abuses.
Thank you for reading FemWealth! 🥰
Prioritize your health, and have an excellent week ahead!
Anamaria
Founder & Writer of FemWealth