I recently attended
the Health Tech 2.0 conference hosted by Women of Wearables Global. At this event I listened to a very interesting panel discussion on
“The role of technology in creating better sexual health”.
Moderated by Dominnique
Karetsos, co-founder and CEO of The Healthy Pleasure Group, the panel
discussed a wide variety of thought-provoking questions and viewpoints.
On the panel was Soumyadip Rakshit,
co-founder and CEO of MysteryVibe, Patricia
López Trabajo, founder and CEO of MYHIXEL, Sara
Kranjčec Jukić, Global Brand Manager at LELO and Andrea
Oliver, co-founder and CEO of Emjoy.
Sara spoke about the
changing societal views on this industry, a focus on women’s health and
women’s sexual health has often been viewed as a very “niche” market.
Now, in the wake of a new era, we are seeing an innovative wave of technology
made by women, for women. Femtech is set to be the next big disruptor in
the global healthcare market, estimated to become an industry worth US$50
billion by 2025. Interestingly, it is female entrepreneurs who are at
the forefront of this revolution.
It has been incredible to see the femtech market boom, not only
because of the enormous benefits this has on women’s health and their
quality of life, but it has encouraged more women to enter the venture capital
industry. As an international investor in femtech and principal of my
own venture capital fund, it is vital that we continue to support this
developing market that concerns more than 50% of the world population.
Within NJF Capital’s portfolio, I have invested in the femtech
sector with Elvie and Cadence. We know that more needs to be done for female entrepreneurship. We have to work to improve the fact that
only 1% of venture capital funding to new businesses is to female-led UK
start-ups. Which is why I am a proud investor in Elvie, a London-based company
founded by female entrepreneur Tania Boler. Frustrated to find
that women’s health has been given inadequate attention in both the research
and technological fields, Boler set out to make remedying this her
priority and to “get women talking about health issues more”. She has achieved
this goal through two of Elvie’s key products: the Pump
and Trainer. The former is for breastfeeding, the latter is for the pelvic
floor.
Femtech can play a vital role in helping to change this and I look forward to
seeing how the industry develops.
