WoW Woman in FemTech I Dr Vanessa Julia Carpenter, Founding Partner at Femtech Studios
Dr Vanessa Julia Carpenter believes in being a catalyst for change. Her focus today is on Femtech and how we can empower half the world’s population to live a better life. She holds a PhD in Designing for Meaningfulness in Future Smart Products from Aalborg University, Copenhagen and is a Founding Partner at Femtech Studios, a venture studio building future femtech companies, a co-founder of the Nordic Women’s Health Hub, connecting the ecosystem of women’s health, and is founder and designer at Kintsugi Design, a design studio specializing in prototyping and designing femtech and emerging technologies. She has founded the Nordic Women in Hardware network, the Icelandic Women in Immersive Tech chapter (with Lemke Meijer) and is a member of the Danish Design Council and is editor and writer at TechTruster, the Danish femtech news site. She is also the femtech expert for both the The Danish Society of Engineers’ expert panel (IDA) and the Manyone Expert Panel.
Tell us a bit about your background and your projects so far.
I am Dr Vanessa Julia Carpenter, a design researcher, technologist, and entrepreneur dedicated to creating meaningful femtech futures through design and technology. I hold a PhD in Designing for Meaningfulness in Future Smart Products from Aalborg University, Copenhagen which emerged from an intense frustration with the trend of the Internet of Things putting more and more chips into things without a lot of regard for how it affected people and planet. From this work, and a fall off a cliff into early menopause, I began working in femtech and put my design and technology skills to use to help design, develop and advocate for solutions for women’s health issues. I founded the Nordic Women in Hardware and co-founded the Nordic Women’s Health Hub and am a Founding Partner at Femtech Studios, a venture studio dedicated to building the next generation of femtech companies. I am an editor and writer at TechTruster, the leading femtech news site in the Nordics. I also serve as a femtech expert panelist for the Danish Society of Engineers (IDA) and the Manyone Expert Panel, and I am a member of the Danish Design Council.
Beyond my work in femtech, I have spent over 20 years developing hardware prototypes, digital experiences, and immersive storytelling across industry, academia, and the arts, holding roles such as Chief Innovation Officer at Gagarin, VR Business Developer at Astrid, Creative Technologist at SPACE10, and Lead Designer at FORCE Technology - always ensuring that technology is designed for people, not just for the sake of innovation.
How did you get into this industry? Has it been an easy industry to get into or have you had many challenges?
I began my career at the intersection of art, technology, and design, which led me to explore how emerging technologies shape human experiences. My frustration with the lack of meaningful and user-centered design in smart products pushed me to pursue a PhD focused on designing for human values, connection, and self-development. During this work on Designing for Meaningfulness (ca. 2016), I taught a wearables course at the jewellery design program in Copenhagen School for Design and Technology, KEA, where one of the student teams and I created Fibo, a pregnancy wearable for men/partners of pregnant people. Fibo is a wrist-worn wearable which emulates the movement of the baby in real time (based on a patch worn on the mother’s stomach) and allows the partner to feel kicks, pushes, hiccups, and rolls of the baby. (Learn more: https://kintsugi-design.com/portfolio-item/pregnancy-wearable/ ). This initial dive into the world of women’s health led me to learn more about it and at the same time, I entered early menopause at the age of 39 and suddenly found that not only was there NO technology for me, but also no one was talking about it, at all. Menopause was completely taboo back in 2019 so I shifted my entire focus to menopause and femtech.
I saw the massive gap in research, investment, and product development for women’s health and knew I could contribute. However, it hasn’t been an easy path. Femtech is still an emerging industry, often overlooked in mainstream tech and venture capital. Advocating for this space requires challenging outdated norms and convincing investors, companies, and policymakers that women’s health is a priority—not a niche market, and this argument I’ve heard many times, even today.
Additionally, being a woman in hardware, prototyping, and engineering presents challenges, as these fields are traditionally male-dominated. That’s why I founded Nordic Women in Hardware—to create a network for women working with technology, electronics, and product development.
Working through intense and difficult symptoms of menopause was very hard, but it did fuel me to build www.menopause.tech, which is still under development, a place for people to learn about the technologies available for the future of menopause care.
As I was already a keynote speaker in technology for many conferences and events, I shifted my talks to be about femtech and menopause tech and women’s health overall and the extreme lack of development and focus in this area. I began writing for TechTruster and myself and the two journalists creating it, Cecilie Helm Darling and Helle Baagø, decided in 2020 to shift from ‘new tech’ to femtech and have been writing with the aim of informing the everyday woman about the technologies available to her, ever since. Here, our challenge has been gaining readers and sponsors, people still don’t understand femtech or that there are solutions for women’s health but in the past two years in Denmark, the space has exploded and now it is increasingly featured in the media so hopefully, people will hop on board the femtech train soon.
This is why we created the Nordic Women’s Health Hub and Femtech Studios (two different groups). The Nordic Women’s Health Hub, where I am a co-founder, aims to be the red thread in the Nordics, gathering everyone working within women’s health, to accelerate it. Femtech Studios, where I am a Founding Partner, aims to build and scale femtech startups and help large companies and investors ease into this space. Our challenges here are the same, how to get people to understand the massive scope of women’s health and the vital importance of this space and how they can have immediate impact in this space if they just give it a bit of attention.
How long did it take you to be where you are now? What was the biggest obstacle?
My journey spans over 20 years, and throughout this time, I have worked across startups, multinational corporations, academia, and the arts, always pushing boundaries in innovation, technology, and meaningful design.
One of the biggest obstacles has been changing mindsets—convincing industries that technology isn’t just about efficiency and data collection but about meaning, purpose, and impact. In femtech, the biggest challenge is getting proper funding and investment. Despite the significant financial opportunity in women’s health, the industry still receives only a small fraction of VC funding compared to other sectors, and I’m still told that femtech is niche, or people hear me say ‘fintech’, which is always fun to explain the difference.
Overcoming the barriers of truly bringing women’s health to a place where we can help half the world’s population requires challenging taboos, social norms, and disrupting traditional systems - all things which I enjoy tremendously.
What are the challenges of being in the industry you are in?
Honestly, money. I’ve been in this field for 8 years now and I still have a 20 hour a week part time job to support myself. The money is starting to emerge (Denmark just announced a 30 billion danish kroner initiative to support women’s health) but it’s not here yet and people are still asking me to work for free even though I have 20 years experience, have been a keynote speaker for more than 15 years, and have an endless array of accomplishments and certifications. It’s a bit like asking an artist to work for free, because they love it. But they still need to not only eat, but thrive. That’s why I’m so excited about our work at Femtech Studios, truly turning the startup world and VC funding inside out and approaching it with a lens of Designing for Meaningfulness, moving away from the hyper masculine (I’m speaking energy wise here) approach of move fast and break things to move intentionally and focus on values, priorities, and how to get closer to an exit.
What are your biggest achievements to date?
I consider an achievement to be when I have empowered someone else to move forward with purpose. I am a natural party starter and have started a lot of initiatives to empower others including:
Building the Nordic Women in Hardware network, connecting women working in electronics, hardware, and engineering.
Building and launching the Nordic Women’s Health Hub, fostering collaboration within the femtech ecosystem and meeting and collaborating with an amazing team of 12 people who are now working together to take the hub further.
Building and launching the Women in Immersive Tech Iceland chapter, with my co-ambassador, Lemke Meijer
Writing and editing for TechTruster, the Nordic’s premier femtech news site.
Founding Kintsugi Design, where we help companies create future-femtech solutions through meaningful design and strategic prototyping.
Being a Founding Partner at Femtech Studios, a venture studio dedicated to launching new femtech companies and designing new ways of engaging with startups, investors and VCs.
Serving on expert panels for the Danish Society of Engineers (IDA) and the Manyone Expert Panel to shape the future of technology and women’s health.
Being a keynote speaker and facilitator, inspiring companies and organizations to rethink how they develop technology and innovation strategies.
What are the projects you are currently working on?
I’ll just highlight one in particular: For the fourth year, I am working with Mette Laier Henriksen, Lecturer and jewellery designer at the Copenhagen School for Design and Technology, KEA where we are teaching a course to the jewellery design class called “Meaningful Menopause Jewellery”. Students use the Designing for Meaningfulness framework and applied it to the complex subject of menopause, creating smart jewellery which helps wearers to manage their menopause symptoms. See some examples here: https://kintsugi-design.com/portfolio-item/meaningful-menopause-jewellery/
I love this project because it is challenging what we think of technology as being. It is jewellery, it is something you wear for self expression or for sentimental reasons. It helps you to manage symptoms that are sometimes impossible to sense using electronics so it instead uses technology as a companion. Furthermore, the students are not allowed to design for hot flashes, as most technology solutions address this - you’re hot, cool you down - instead they have to address the other 34 - 100 symptoms that are much more difficult. Anxiety, brain fog, loss of libido, joint pain, etc, and they do it elegantly and thoughtfully.
We have another exhibition coming up on the 28th. March where the latest class will showcase their Meaningful Menopause Jewellery.
Besides this I am:
Developing a menopause tech platform to address the unmet needs of women experiencing menopause.
Expanding Femtech Studios, where we support new startups in launching meaningful femtech solutions.
Advocating for better investment and awareness in femtech, working closely with industry leaders to push for greater recognition of women’s health innovation.
Hosting workshops and talks on Designing for Meaningfulness, helping companies create more human-centered technology.
Scaling TechTruster, our femtech news platform, to amplify research, product launches, and policy developments in the industry.
Is the #WomenInTech movement important to you and if yes, why?
Very much so. I was blind, for many years, to the struggles women experience, whether in tech or not. I have always worked in very male-dominated environments (the police in Canada, engineering companies in Denmark), and I’ve been lucky to have amazing colleagues, which I’m grateful for. However, I have had to work very, very hard to prove myself, especially having moved from Canada to Denmark, being a foreigner, not speaking the language (it is a truly difficult language to learn!). And those aspects anyone might experience, but I have had times in early menopause where I had 20 days of heavy bleeding every month and I still stood up in front of board meetings or a crowd of 400, being a powerhouse and a thought leader, and knowing far more than I needed to about technology, trends, reports, stats, etc to ensure I was respected amongst all the men in the audience or the room or amongst my colleagues. I was tough, I didn’t show much emotion, I thought this was the way to go. And now, I’ve done a complete 180 after my PhD in Designing for Meaningfulness, where I’ve learned the value of vulnerability and focusing on value and empathy-driven work. All this to say that the #WomeninTech movement is important because it creates space for this. It drives a wedge in the traditional environments and forces open a space for women to breathe, to stand up, to show their amazing work and to shine, and I am an extroverted person who loves the stage, and so for me, it’s a space I have demanded, but for many women, it is terrifying to exist in that space, nevermind demand it. That’s why I created the Nordic Women in Hardware network to start with (it is now run by an incredible woman, Mahsa Esmaeili) and it truly showed me what creating a space like this could do for other women.
By co-founding and building the Nordic Women’s Health Hub, TechTruster and Femtech Studios, I’ve worked to create platforms that support women in hardware, design, and engineering. The #WomenInTech movement is essential because diverse teams build better, more inclusive products. When women are involved in decision-making, we get innovation that actually serves our needs.
What will be the key trends in your industry in the next five years and where do you see them heading?
Menopause Tech will become mainstream—With over 1 billion women in menopause this year, we’ll see new solutions addressing hormonal health, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, and cognitive function. It’s finally mainstream and people are screaming for solutions.
Personalized healthcare powered by AI and wearables—Advancements in biometrics, machine learning, and real-time tracking will make health data more accessible and actionable.
Regulatory changes will drive innovation—As governments recognize the importance of women’s health research, we’ll see new standards for clinical trials and medical devices. And hopefully more clinical data, more quickly so we can learn about and innovate within women’s health.
More diverse leadership in femtech—The industry will continue to push for more female-led companies, female investors, and decision-makers to drive meaningful innovation, and then finally:
A focus on Designing for Meaningfulness, or value or empathy driven design and development. Whatever you want to call it, a shift in how we design, develop, deliver, build, scale and exit.
What is the most important piece of advice you could give to anyone who wants to start a career in this industry?
Push your boundaries and push other’s boundaries. Be fearless in challenging the status quo. Whether in femtech, hardware, or emerging technologies, innovation happens when you refuse to accept outdated systems and then experiment constantly—Prototype, test, and iterate. Success in femtech comes from deeply understanding real user needs and designing solutions that truly improve lives.
Who are three inspirational women in your respective industry you admire?
Femtech Founder and CEO of Lioness: Anna Lee
I love the concept of Lioness, a hardware product that focuses on sexual pleasure and helping people to learn about their bodies. I was lucky enough to meet Anna at Iceland Innovation Week last year and I love her approach and determination to make a dent in this extremely taboo area. Women enjoying themselves? Discovering their bodies? Mon dieu! But they do it, and their website is a treasure trove of information that they call the “Lioness Sex Research Platform”. Thanks Anna for your hard work!
Freelance Content Strategist, Diahala Doucouré
Diahala is a kind, soft spoken woman who quietly empowers everyone who follows her on LinkedIn and does a huge amount of work whilst also showing how you can build up your own company within femtech. She runs a femtech bookclub, she has an amazing newsletter about femtech marketing, she shares personal and vulnerable stories to empower and inspire, she is full of amazing tips and tricks and gives them freely, knowing she’s building a dedicated following of people who trust and respect her work and will soon be clients, if they aren’t already. Thanks Diahala for all the wise words!
Researcher Joo Young Park, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Joo Young probably has no idea who I am but I follow and adore her work, where she fiercely advances femtech in academia with papers such as “Tactful Feminist Sensing: Designing for Touching Vaginal Fluids”; “Ambivalences in digital contraception: designing for mixed feelings and oscillating relations”; “Speculations on Feminist Reproductive Health Technologies”; “Designing with Discomfort: A Feminist Approach towards Intimate Care Technologies”; “A Plurality of More-than-Humanness: Feminist Speculations for Designing with the Vaginal Microbiome” and many more. Of course, her co-authors are also rockstars (as are many at KTH). I just wanted to give a little shout out to the academics working on femtech who are not usually mentioned amongst all the femtech founders, and I truly appreciate the work they are doing, and one of the things that fuels and informs my own work, is keeping up to date with femtech in academia, as much as I can! Thanks JY!
Femtech Studios is dedicated to transforming women's health by developing meaningful, technology-driven ventures. Collaborating with a diverse network of investors, researchers, and clinicians, they empower founders at every stage, offering strategic investment coupled with hands-on mentorship. Their Designing for Meaningfulness™ approach ensures empathy-led innovation, addressing real needs with impactful solutions. Beyond traditional incubators, they delve into the complexities of scaling, fostering a collaborative ecosystem that accelerates growth and drives systemic change. With the femtech market projected to surpass $100 billion by 2030, Femtech Studios positions itself at the forefront of this burgeoning revolution, unlocking unparalleled opportunities in women's health.
Find out more on their website.
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