Investing and Fundraising in HealthTech and FemTech is a global virtual conference answering all your questions about fundraising and investing in this space. It's a global meetup of investors and founders sharing their insights, knowledge, best practices, and advice on how to raise money for FemTech and Health Tech businesses. We gathered founders, angels, VCs, startup accelerators, and experts from the field to educate, inform and share best practices on different ways to raise money to grow the businesses and share lessons learned along the way. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital health adoption by several years, which reflected in the surge of venture funding in digital health as well.
According to CB Insights’ State Of Healthcare Q1’21: Investment & Sector Trends To Watch report, global healthcare funding hit a new quarterly record in Q1 2021 with a total of $31.6B in equity funding. Startups offering on-demand healthcare services ($1.2B across 17 deals) and biopharma research and development catalysts ($1.1B across 13 deals) secured the most funding across 2020 and 2021, Rock Health report shows. Q1 2021 saw an uptick in investment activity for certain clinical issues. Among companies supporting a specific clinical condition, mental health companies garnered the most amount of funding in Q1 2021.
But, unlike the funding stats for digital health companies, the funding stats for female founders are not improving. In fact, venture funding for female founders has hit its lowest quarterly total in three years, according to PitchBook data. Crunchbase data shows that American startups founded solely by female founders raised only $3.2 billion in 2020, down a billion dollars from $4.2 billion in 2019. When it comes to women in VC, only 5.6% of US VC firms are women-led.
Join us for a whole day event to learn about Investing and Fundraising in HealthTech and FemTech space, meet successful founders and CEOs, find out who are the leading investors in this space, and connect with like-minded professionals from around the world!
CONFERENCE AGENDA
(*please note all time slots are BST)
11:00am - Opening words by organising team
11:10am - “Resilience and defiance: Turning endless challenges into impact” - fireside chat with Thang Vo-Ta, co-founder and CEO of Callaly
Moderated by Marija Butkovic, founder and CEO of Women of Wearables
Callaly is a period-positive startup revolutionising the multi-billion pound feminine care industry and named one of the Most Innovative Companies of 2021 by Fast Company. Its Tampliner® is the first patented product that completely rethinks how a tampon could work, recently awarded one of TIME Magazine's Best Inventions, and is proudly manufactured in the UK. At the emotional heart of the brand is the desire to offer better solutions for women's health at much higher standards. From raising $13 million in funding (no VCs included!) to becoming a B Corporation - a profit-making business that’s committed to using our business as a force for good, Callaly is a true example of a company disrupting the traditional approach towards building a successful startup in the femtech space.
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm - “Investing in companies that bring joy (and money)” - fireside chat with Miri Polachek, CEO of Joy Ventures
Moderated by Anja Streicher, CMO of Women of Wearables
All investors want to invest in companies that bring money. But apart from that, Joy Ventures want to invest in companies that bring joy and can improve people’s health and wellbeing. Why is it important to find the investors who are aligned with your mission and how to make sure you’re the right fit? Join us for a fireside chat with Miri Polachek, the CEO of Joy Ventures, to hear her perspective. Joy Ventures is a startup studio dedicated to building and funding consumer well-being startups, on a mission to help people feel good and enjoy life, every day. Joy offers a unique investment model: funding and supporting founders and startups at various stages, seeding ideas, collaborating on new venture creation, and advancing innovation and early technology development.
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Panel discussion - “Crowdfunding Explained - the power of a social network in raising funding and democratising investment”
Moderated by Marija Butkovic, founder and CEO of Women of Wearables
There are different ways for startups to raise money for their businesses, and crowdfunding has become a popular way to do so. But, contrary to some beliefs, it’s not the easiest way. How should you crowdfund your business? Equity-based crowdfunding, reward-based crowdfunding, debt-based, donation-based, should you have a strategy in place? If you’ve ever found yourself wondering, “What is crowdfunding?” “What does crowdfunding mean?” or, “What are the benefits of crowdfunding?” then join this session where we will answer your questions about crowdfunding and give you top tips on how to bring in donations and investments into your business - we have the answers from the people who’ve been there, done that and are willing to share their knowledge with you.
Hannah Forbes, Founder of The Funding Crowd
Laura Feinstein, Senior Design & Technology Editor at Kickstarter
Sacha Waters, Senior Equity Fundraising manager at Crowdcube
Alma Ramírez Acosta, Co-Founder of Vibio
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm - “Restarting and scaling the company led by women for women” - fireside chat with Keren Leshem, CEO of OCON Healthcare
Moderated by Anja Streicher, CMO of Women of Wearables
Rebuilding a company, its board, its team, and its products, fundraising during the pandemic, developing one of the most innovative drug-delivery platforms for uterine conditions on the market, Keren Leshem has been through it all. Keren joined the company in September 2019, and very quickly put the company on the trajectory of growth. The company now has 100,000-plus women who chose their innovative product - IUB™ Ballerine® - non-hormonal, long-acting contraception inserted by their doctor. This smart 3D contraceptive is currently sold in 30 markets in Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. It’s a company led by women for women, as Leshem says, with 85% of its team in all departments and across all disciplines being women now. In this hour-long session, you will be able to hear the fundraising journey, ups and downs OCON Healthcare went through as a company, how they managed to overcome them, and all the innovative products they are bringing to the market to improve women’s health, freedom to choose and wellbeing.
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm - Panel discussion “From Investors’ Perspective: Investing In Health Tech and FemTech”
Moderated by Marija Butkovic, founder and CEO of Women of Wearables
“What are you looking for when investing in a company or its founders?” is probably one of the most common questions investors get asked. But there is no universal answer to this question. We gathered a group of investors to hear their perspectives on what they’re looking for in companies, founders, and their teams. In this session, we will discuss the best pitch practices, how to build a strong, long-term relationship with your investors, how to grow your business through a startup accelerator, and more.
Anjel Noorbakhsh Ashman, CFA, Angel Investor at Ada Ventures and Investment Manager at Aureum
Karina Vazirova, co-founder of FemTech Lab
Jenny Fielding, Managing Director of Techstars New York and General Partner at The Fund
Maria Velissaris, Founding Partner of SteelSky Ventures
4:00 pm - 5.00 pm - “Putting the User at the heart of the product” - fireside chat with Kelly Dawson, Head of Innovation and Insight at Kinneir Dufort and Merle Hall, the CEO of Kinneir Dufort
Moderated by Marija Butkovic, founder and CEO of Women of Wearables
Whether creating an intuitive physical product, designing an optimal digital experience, or pitching to an investor, having insightful data and actionable feedback from your potential target users is essential. Kelly Dawson (Head of Innovation and Insight) and Merle Hall (CEO) share their experiences and practical tips on how to ensure the user sits at the heart of the MVP, resulting in compelling user-centered products and experiences, driving advocacy, and enabling your investment ambitions.
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm - Panel discussion “Success stories from founders and CEOs - From Seed to IPO”
Moderated by Anja Streicher, CMO of Women of Wearables
In 2020, venture funding for female founders has hit its lowest quarterly total in three years, according to PitchBook data. When it comes to women in VC, only 5.6% of US VC firms are women-led. Fundraising is indeed a journey for everyone involved, whether you are a founder or investor, and everyone was at the beginning of it at one point. From Seed to IPO, every stage is different and has its challenges. But there are many success stories, too. In this session, hear the fundraising stories from the founders who are pushing the frontiers of innovation in the Fem Tech and Health Tech industry, building companies, and making products that change our lives for the better.
Elin Ng, co-founder & COO, Salve Health
Marina Pavlovic Rivas, co-founder and CEO of Eli Health
Saundra Pelletier, CEO of Evofem Biosciences, Inc.
Crystal Adesanya, CEO & Founder of Kiira Health
ABOUT OUR SPONSORS AND PARTNERS
Joy Ventures is a startup studio dedicated to building and funding consumer well-being startups, on a mission to help people feel good and enjoy life, every day. Joy offers a unique investment model: funding and supporting founders and startups at various stages, seeding ideas, collaborating on new venture creation, and advancing innovation and early technology development. The studio’s singular focus allows it to provide deep domain expertise, guidance, and a global network of strategic industry and academic partners to founders from the ideation phase all the way to round A and beyond.
OCON Healthcare’s mission is to introduce innovative medical solutions that allow women healthier choices while improving their well-being and quality of life. OCON develops, manufactures, and commercializes innovative women’s health products based on our IUB™ (Intra Uterine Ball) proprietary platform. The IUB™, made of a super-elastic alloy Nitinol, is an ideal carrier for hormone-free contraception and other intrauterine drugs. OCON’s first product, the IUB™ Ballerine®, is a long-term, copper-based hormone-free intrauterine contraceptive already used by more than 95’000 women across 24 countries with high satisfaction rates. The Company is also developing an innovative and disruptive pipeline of products using the IUB™ frame for additional indications including abnormal uterine bleeding.
Callaly is on a mission to reinvent period-care and to inspire people with periods to expect more from their products, using innovation to finally put customers’ needs first. Their patented product, the Tampliner®, is the first true redesign of the tampon in 80 years. Since their 2020 launch, they have sold almost a million period products, won numerous awards for their innovation and branding, including being named one of the Most Innovative Companies in the World by Fast company, and TIME naming the Tampliner one of Best Inventions of 2020. Callaly is a B Corp, meaning they’re committed to using business as a force for good.
Kinneir Dufort is a user-centered innovation and product development consultancy, collectively driven to Design a Better World by creating impactful change and positive outcomes for clients and the user. Combining creative, technical, and user-experience expertise, Kinneir Dufort works collaboratively, to define, create, develop and deliver high-quality products and experiences across the medical, consumer, and industrial sectors.
ABOUT THE ORGANISING TEAM
Marija Butkovic, Founder and CEO, Women of Wearables
Marija Butkovic is a lawyer-turned-entrepreneur, innovation consultant, feminist, and advocate for diversity and inclusion in the tech sector. She is a founder and CEO of Women of Wearables, a Forbes contributor, STEM ambassador, and startup mentor and advisor. She has been featured in major tech and business publications such as Forbes, TechCrunch, The Next Web, Huffington Post, and selected as one of the Most Influential Women in UK tech by Computer Weekly in 2018, 2019, and 2020.
Anja Streicher, Chief Marketing Officer, Women of Wearables
Anja started her career working for a Y Combinator-backed women’s health startup, Bellabeat, where she led communications, content, and social media strategy. After moving to London, she continued supporting startups from different industries by working at Techstars London, a mentorship-driven startup accelerator program and a worldwide network for entrepreneurs. She is passionate about helping women in tech run and scale their businesses.