Femovate Announces 30 New Early-Stage Femtech Startups for Its 2024 UX Design Sponsorship Program

Launched in 2022 by Guidea, an award-winning UX design agency, Femovate helps femtech startups overcome funding inequalities, along with massive scientific and clinical data gaps through its $1 million femtech innovation sponsorship program

Guidea, an award-winning, women-led UX design agency, today announced 30 new early-stage femtech companies for its 2024 UX design sponsorship program, Femovate, selected from 130 applications across six continents. Launched by Guidea in 2022, the Femovate program has invested more than $1 million in femtech innovation through its UX design sponsorship program and elevates promising femtech startups by giving them the same kind of services that Guidea provides to the top Fortune 100 companies. 

The global femtech market was valued at $51 billion in 2021 and is forecast to reach $1 trillion U.S. by 2027, according to FemTech Landscape Report. Research from the World Economic Forum found that women-focused research could yield an economic return of over 40 times its investment. Despite this rapid growth and massive opportunity for investment in the industry, research from McKinsey & Company revealed that due to bias surrounding the needs of women, femtech companies only receive 3% of all digital health innovation funding.

Experts in UX design and product strategy from Guidea will work closely with the 2024 Femovate companies to help them improve and accelerate the efficiency, usability and accessibility of their products. The complimentary services provided by Guidea will help burnish the credibility of the 2024 Femovate companies, putting them in a far stronger position to acquire new funding and media opportunities. UX design support may include researching and testing digital designs, identifying areas for differentiation in the market, collaborating with industrial designers and engineering teams to create user-centric products that exceed expectations, and delving deeply into the patient, provider and customer journey.

“Femtech is the industry that will change the world,” said Guidea CEO and co-founder Theresa Neil. “We see incredible promise with the startups we're sponsoring while understanding the challenges they face bringing innovation to generally taboo health topics. Femovate can provide a small but powerful boost for these companies to jump to the forefront of femtech and bring solutions to millions of women globally.”

The 30 companies selected for the 2024 Femovate program include:

BREAST HEALTH

●      Deeplook Medical: Revolutionizing radiology for cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment, with their FDA-approved, patent-protected software. The shape recognition software accurately measures, segments, and displays the density of soft tumor masses in Mammograms, Ultrasounds, CT scans, and MRI images — with just one click.

●      iSono Health: Transforms breast cancer screening by combining automated ultrasound and artificial intelligence (AI) to empower women and physicians with accessible and personalized breast health monitoring.

●      KnowBra: Uses AI and computer vision for post-mastectomy bra fitting. The platform automates insurance claims and offers zero-touch fittings. KnowBra's solution reduces discomfort, boosts confidence, and guarantees a proper fit.

CARDIOVASCULAR

●      Armor Medical: A biomedical device company that dares to innovate better health for all. The company’s groundbreaking wearable device, Maternal aRMOR, is revolutionizing early obstetric hemorrhage detection - offering objective, real-time monitoring to enhance patient outcomes and reduce healthcare costs.

CHRONIC CONDITIONS

●      Afynia Labs: Developer of an at-home screening test that will shorten the path to diagnosis and treatment for endometriosis.

FERTILITY

●      PherDal Fertility Science: Stands at the forefront of innovative reproductive healthcare, dedicated to transforming fertility assistance with groundbreaking and accessible solutions. The company’s flagship product, the PherDal Kit, is a patented, sterile, FDA-cleared over-the-counter option, meticulously designed to empower individuals on their path to parenthood.

●      Plan Your Baby: A global fertility and pregnancy telehealth clinic providing end-to-end clinical, digital, affordable, effective, personalized and fast solutions for fertility and pregnancy-related problems. 

HORMONE HEALTH

●      Iameno: An end-to-end hormonal health management platform leveraging AI, data and sciences to provide daily step-by-step personalized guidance and action plans to women going through hormonal changes impacting their physical, emotional and cognitive health. Our mission is to create a new generation of women who are smarter about their health.

●      Impli: Developer of subdermal implants that monitor fertility hormone levels frequently and in real-time so that clinicians can make better decisions during the IVF treatment. Clinicians need more data points to deliver precision care to move the dial on success rates and increase women's safety.

●      Proov: A proactive fertility testing platform that helps couples identify the leading causes of infertility at home. Proov is the only FDA-cleared test to confirm ovulation at home. It combines simple urine-based diagnostics with an easy-to-use app to give women a clear view of their menstrual cycles and fertility status. 

MATERNAL HEALTH

●      BB Imaging: A telesonography® provider that connects healthcare facilities and their patients with remote, expert sonographers. By combining a facility's existing resources with FDA-cleared and HIPAA-compliant technology, TeleScan can bring high-quality prenatal ultrasound care to all patients. 

●      Ciconia: The first AI-based medical device that allows clinicians to base critical labor decisions on accurate and user-independent measurements, providing a safe and gentle process for both mom and baby.

●      EXO: A company battling disparities in women’s health research and treatment while enhancing the standard of care for maternal health.

●      Health Evolve: Brings care delivery closer to home and is the creator of LAUREN, a digital health platform to help pregnant and postpartum women manage their health while receiving support from a personalized care village outside of the walls of the clinic.

●      Partum: A hybrid clinic delivering the best of online and offline care to women and families through the fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum journey. 

●      riskLD: A clinician-facing perinatal patient safety software platform developed to elevate situational awareness of inpatient obstetric units and improve outcomes for pregnant patients and their newborns. 

●      Villie: A platform that connects expecting parents with support from loved ones through cash, gifts, and services while also helping brands target moms by placing products in front of their villagers to drive revenue.

MENSTRUATION

●      Joni: A menstrual care brand that’s making organic and sustainable products mainstream to make period care accessible for everyone.

ONCOLOGY

●      Cacta: Creator of MyLymphCare, a research-based home-monitoring solution for early detection of lymphedema, one of the major side effects of breast cancer treatment. We empower women to monitor at home to catch symptoms before they are visible, enabling early treatment that results in a dramatically lower risk of chronic lymphedema.

●      Prosoma: A global medical company delivering digital healthcare solutions for oncology, with a product portfolio that supports the patient’s mental and behavioral health. 

●      Thyia: A digital health platform providing women with access to at-home cervical cancer screening tests making cervical cancer a thing of the past.

PELVIC FLOOR HEALTH

●      HyIvy: Provides data-driven medical devices that facilitate pelvic floor rehabilitation.

SAFETY AND PRIVACY

●      Epowar: A wearable technology to make women safer. The company recently launched the first safety app that detects if the user is physically attacked, alerting their chosen contacts, sharing live location data and storing valuable evidence in the cloud.

UTERINE HEALTH

●      Nesa Medtech: A leading deep-tech medtech startup specializing in developing patented, scarless image-guided surgical solutions in women’s health using advanced technology. 

WOMEN’S WELLNESS

●      Bloomful: A diagnostic solution delivering streamlined, accessible gynecological care to underserved women globally.

●      Celeste: Celeste's ExactRx is a medication diagnostic tool that transforms traditionally diagnostic lab panels into actionable medication safety and efficacy insights. Using AI-powered precision medicine, it enables healthcare providers and payers to pre-emptively assess how a patient will respond to medications and subsequently create personalized adherence plans. 

●      Girls First Finance: Girls First Finance (GFF) promotes equitable access to education and financial services for vulnerable young women starting in Africa who are otherwise at risk of exploitation to cover their education expenses. Through its mobile super app platform, GFF provides access to student loans along with tools focused on safeguarding, financial literacy, career development and community support across over a dozen features.

●      Health in Her Hue: A digital health platform dedicated to connecting Black women and women of color to culturally sensitive healthcare providers, evidence-based, culturally-tailored health content, and community support.

●      Incora: Empowers women to meet their fertility and wellness goals by providing actionable health insights using the Incora smart earrings.

●      NAWAT Health: A digital platform that provides Arab women access to sexual and reproductive health educational programs and judgment-free and pleasure-positive online care with diverse, trusted, and trained sexual and reproductive health experts.

“The world is finally waking up to the staggering data that shows both the investment gap into women-led companies, women-centric innovation, and the huge untapped potential of both — and some are taking real tangible action,” said Ida Tin, CEO and founder of the women’s menstruation-tracking app, Clue, who is also credited with coining the term ‘femtech.’ “I’m impressed with the caliber of the femtech companies I’ve been part of selecting for the 2024 Femovate cohort and the practical support they receive from Femovate.”

Access the Femovate press kit here. 

About Femovate

Femovate is a UX sponsorship program for early-stage femtech startups. Launched in 2022 by Guidea, acclaimed for their expertise in UX design and product strategy, Femovate is aimed at lifting up femtech founders who work in a sector that has been woefully underfunded. Femovate has already contributed over $1 million of UX and product services to more than 30 early-stage startups since its inception. Learn more at https://www.femovate.com. 

About Guidea

Guidea is an award-winning, women-led UX consultancy with extensive product and design strategy expertise in medtech, IoT, wearables, population health insights, digital therapeutics, healthcare software and femtech. The team is a trusted partner to 20 Fortune 100 companies and dozens of innovative startups. Products designed by Guidea are used by more than one billion people worldwide, and more than 660 million users globally use innovative health products designed by Guidea. Learn more at https://guidea.com.