Q&A: How financial uncertainty might have an effect on femtech

Femtech has grown over the past decade, however investments in female-focused companies pale compared to the bigger digital well being sector. 

Ida Tin, cofounder and chairwoman at Clue, a Berlin-based menstrual well being app, coined the term femtech in 2016 and joined MobiHealthNews to debate funding and development within the sector.

MobiHealthNews: How do you assume the collapse of Silicon Valley Financial institution will have an effect on femtech?

Ida Tin: I feel there’s something type of basic to be stated about innovation, and particularly firms which might be possibly larger danger which have discovered investments, and doubtless actually hard-earned funding cash. And I might say I feel it is just a little bit like in battle zones and catastrophe areas, like ladies are all the time hit first and hardest. And I sort of worry that it could possibly be comparable right here as a result of it is exhausting to lift cash for femtech. I feel it is truthful to say. And the sort of extra specialised funds which have emerged over the past years, they’re like peanuts-sized funds, sadly.

And I feel, simply typically, when everyone will get extra nervous, we are likely to do extra of the identified, and something that’s within the areas of one thing that would culturally be tougher or really feel extra new or unknown, then issues simply get tighter. However I’ll say, there’s additionally a robust sort of counter-current taking place proper now, the place femtech and feminine well being, and well being typically, actually does have a whole lot of curiosity and assist. And I feel that will probably be just like the strongest present. There is not any approach that girls are going to cease wanting to construct merchandise that remedy actual issues for them and for one another. So I am not afraid that femtech will type of endure an enormous blow.

MHN: What is going on on with Clue, and the way is it progressing?

Tin: We simply really rebuilt our entire codebase and relaunched the app. This was as a result of we now have a whole lot of legacy code, and we wished to have the ability to construct issues a lot sooner. And that was not one thing that I feel customers will discover all that a lot. The app seems just a little bit completely different, however from type of behind the scenes, that was an enormous success.  

We have now a pregnancy feature now, we now have a help you get pregnant feature, and after you’ve given birth. So serving to undergo the life phases extra seamlessly.  We have now additionally been hit by the monetary “meh.” We had an enormous type of enterprise deal, enterprise debt financing that fell by due to macroeconomic issues. So we had to let people go, which is so unhappy as a result of we had constructed a tremendous staff the final 12 months. In order that was simply unhealthy luck. Clue is doing nice, however exterior elements hit us like everybody else.

MHN: How do you see femtech progressing sooner or later to profit ladies’s well being?

Tin: There’s nonetheless a discovery problem. I feel, really, there are numerous new merchandise that most individuals will most likely not have heard about. And I feel that is an indication of a really younger class nonetheless. 

There’s additionally a whole lot of fragmentation on a knowledge stage. We do not nonetheless have a spot or a method to actually leverage all the data that we are creating. And I feel that is one thing that I hope will come quickly, in order that it is extra handy for customers to essentially get extra full photos of their well being and higher navigate this tradition. 

I feel there’s nonetheless room for type of deeper tech, extra superior algorithms or house diagnostics, […] higher sorts of contraception, or issues that sort of take extra innovation, more cash to get to market. They’re on the way in which, however there’s nonetheless some type of a leap that we are able to do technologically, I feel.

Emily Kwan will provide extra element at her HIMSS23 session “Implementing an AI NLP Instrument to Handle SDOH Wants.” It’s scheduled for Tuesday, April 18, at 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. CT on the South Constructing, Stage 1, S105 C.