The ‘major disadvantage’ that women behind the femtech phenomenon face

Wouldn’t tampons that promote women’s sexual health be a great idea? Welcome to The Daughters of Mars tampons that use PH-friendly ingredients to help prevent vaginal infections like 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 the human papillomavirus? (HPV)? Hello, The blue boxan ‘electronic nose’ that detects biomarkers for breast cancer.

And show me a woman trying to get pregnant who wouldn’t rather inhale through Ilo’s wearable device than pee on a stick to see if she’s ovulating.

These are just some of the ideas emerging from ‘femtech’, a domain dedicated to technological solutions to health problems specific to women, including maternal, menstrual and sexual health; fertility, menopause and contraception, as well as conditions that mainly or to varying degrees affect women, such as cardiovascular disease and mental health.

Considering that femtech targets approximately 50% of the world’s population – and also studies show that women are likely to spend 29% more per capita on healthcare than men, while they are also 75% more likely to use digital tools will use for health-related information – it is perhaps not surprising that experts predict this will be the “next big thing”.

On the surface, the signs support the hype. Although femtech is still a small segment of the healthtec market, it is growing exponentially: the global femtech market is currently valued at US$28 billion (US$22.3 billion), up from US$500 million a decade ago, and will estimated to reach $60 billion by 2027.

But within the sector, things are far from rosy. Investments in femtech amount to only 1-2% of total health technology financing. And between 2011 and 2021, only 4% of new medtech drugs linked to women-specific health problems were approved in the US.

Gender bias in financing is a major problem, says Mo Carrier, co-founder of MyBliss. Carrier said being the female founder of a femtech company puts her at “a major disadvantage.”

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

Even when femtech companies have secured funding and their product is ready for the market, they face challenges that companies focused on men’s health cannot address.

Béa Fertility, an at-home fertility kit, was told by Amazon that it could not sell its products on their site if they used the words “vagina” or “vaginal canal.” The word ‘sperm’ was fine though.

“We replaced the word ‘vagina’ with ‘birth canal,’ which seems insensitive and rude considering we are a fertility product,” says Tess Isabelle Cosad, co-founder. “But it was as close as we could get without getting another ban.”

Knude Society, an online sexual wellness company, had to accept an insurance policy that charged 150 times more than the going rate – but even that coverage took so long to get insured that they lost out on supplies to a national retailer.

Hanx, a female-focused sexual wellness brand that sells condoms and lubricants for women that won’t disrupt their vaginal biome, found it nearly impossible to find a payment provider.

“One bank refused us. Another caused us to default on payments within 48 hours of our launch. A third party has overly scrutinized our legitimacy,” says co-founder Farah Kabir. “Then a party provider refused to let us launch certain products, while a major competitor could.

“We can only assume that these – and several other similar issues we have encountered – are due to the nature of our business,” she added.

These companies are far from alone. CensHERship is a British campaign to end censorship of online women’s health content. Research they conducted for The Guardian found that 100% of 35 femtech companies that responded to an online survey had experienced similar problems.

Seventy-five percent had been denied a bank account; 60% had their accounts closed, 50% experienced “excessive supervision”, 32% had processing delays and 21% were charged higher fees.

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

“The amount of time and money femtech companies waste trying to solve these problems significantly sets them back and in many cases destroys them altogether,” said Clio Wood, co-founder.

Even for the femtech companies that overcome these hurdles, there will be more to come.

“The censorship around publicity is ridiculous,” Carrier said. “The Internet is full of advertisements for erectile dysfunction etc., but we have even stopped posting online advertisements because they are constantly being deleted or shadowed, which means that the search engine algorithms are secretly adjusted so that no one she can find you,” she said.

Valentina Milanova, CEO and founder of Daye, the company behind a diagnostic tampon, has had the same experience. “We spend up to £100,000 a month on Meta, Google, Amazon and TikTok, but we have been unable to grow our online presence because we are blocked or banned every week,” she said.

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

With around 770 companies active in the sector, Britain has the second largest share of femtech in the world and is a breeding ground for organizations supporting femtech globally, such as Femtech Lab, Women of Wearables and the Oxford Femtech Society.

“Britain in particular has focused on women’s healthcare, with government funding and areas of innovation in femtech companies, and the National Institute for Health and Care Research has just announced a huge amount of funding,” says Rachel Bartholomew of Femtech Across Borders.

Tara Attfield-Tomes, who founded The 51% Club, said it was up to everyone to support the industry.

“We have a wave of women who feel empowered to invent and innovate, despite all these challenges they face,” she said. “Women need these women to reach their potential. It is up to all of us to support them.”