An Introduction To Femtech
Women are beginning to see that, thanks to technology, if there’s a problem – there’s an app to solve it. Just what does femtech really offer women of the digital world?
While modern technology has benefited us all, there has been relatively little investment in products and services specifically aimed at women. This has begun to change over the last few years thanks to a new generation of tech firms. Tech is focusing and investing in female health and well being.
Natural Women
The Berlin-based founder of an app for monitoring ovulation cycles, Ida Tin is credited with coining ‘femtech’ as a term. It’s come to define an entire industry of women’s health products, from pregnancy and nursing care through to physical health and contraception. And though companies like Monthly Gift and Conceivable are quite clear in their focus, you’d struggle to guess on which industries Maven or Landit focus. These telehealth and recruitment platforms serve as prime examples of femtech’s scope for filling gaps in the market, or adopting disruptive approaches to long-standing challenges.
Despite its focus on female products and services, femtech has a surprisingly egalitarian mix of pioneers. A number of firms have been set up by men including the co-founder of PayPal, while others are entirely funded and staffed by women. Any product or service can be classed as femtech, providing its overarching aim is to improve women’s lives.
Wearing A Healthy Glow
An example of this phenomenon can be seen in the Bellabeat bio-tracker. This stone-effect pendant can be worn as a bracelet or a necklace, with a water-resistant tracker monitoring everything from exercise levels to sleep and fertility cycles. An accompanying smartphone app displays results, and recommends ways to reduce stress levels. Funded by a diverse roster of angel investors including Universal Music Group and Y Combinator partner Michael Siebel, the bio-tracker comes from a firm that has already developed a smartphone-powered heartbeat monitoring system for unborn babies.
Femtech Drawing A Crowd
Crowdfunding and venture capital provide key revenue streams for femtech. The ObsEva reproductive health platform attracted $100 million in its first IPO, while the Y Combinator investment program offers growing support to women’s health enterprises. Recent crowdfunding campaigns have met targets ranging from a few thousand dollars to a few million, enabling entrepreneurs from every corner of the planet to create unique products and services. The disruptive effect of all this is similar to crowdfunding in the music industry, or impact investing in ethical startups and we know just how game changing these have been.
Gender Based IoT
A key area for femtech’s future growth is the Internet of Things (IoT), where small or mundane devices report data through wifi. The potential to harvest large-scale clinical data through IoT products could give us a more detailed understanding of women’s health, from fertility to fitness. There is great excitement around the potential of wearables, despite legal ambiguities regarding the use of personal data in clinical surveys and analytics. There are also issues around safety certification for apps and body tech devices, which don’t necessarily meet pre-IoT legal frameworks or satisfy the criteria needed to achieve regulatory approval.
Nonetheless, it’s entirely plausible that GPs might soon be prescribing apps instead of contraception, or using temperature-monitoring bracelets in lieu of thermometers. The femtech sector has immense potential to disrupt established industries, while improving the lives of half the world’s population. What would you like to see apps transform?