WoW Woman in FemTech I Loewen Cavill, founder and CEO of Amira
Loewen Cavill, founder and CEO of Amira.
She founded Amira after seeing her aunt hospitalized from mistreated menopause symptoms. Her aunt had 4-5 nighttime hot flash wakings a night for years leading to chronic sleep deprivation that flipped her life upside down. After interviewing 350+ other menopausal women, Loewen began building out a team of 12 of the brightest MIT engineers, nuclear fusion scientists and AI researchers to reinvent the reality of menopause. Her background in hardware and software engineering paired with healthtech venture investing prepared her to identify the opportunity to scale this technology to the masses.
Amira takes the work out of managing your health. Finding you the answers, giving you what you need before you even know you need it. Amira’s textable AI menopause coach removes the guesswork and speculation by providing you instant personalized expert guidance at any hour. The AI coach is fed in real time biometric data via their novel wearable system that eliminates sleep disruptions from hot flashes. Their patent pending sensor bracelet predicts hot flashes enabling a cooling mattress pad to proactively regulate her temperature keeping her sleeping through her hot flashes. Amira will unlock women’s potential starting with menopause.
Tell us a bit about your background and your projects so far.
On the playground as a first grader I remember my classmate telling me boys are stronger and better at math but women are good at words. From that day on, I swore to myself to be the worst he had ever seen at words and the best he’d seen at math. That classmate I have to thank for getting me on the track to go to MIT where I studied mechanical engineering with computer science. There I was like a kid in a candy shop with all the mathematical engineering beauty around me. I also got my first foray into entrepreneurship through venture investing as a part of Dorm Room Fund and Bessemer Venture Partners showcasing how technologies needed to meet the business fundamentals to reach take off and make it to the masses. I then went on to work as an engineer for a nuclear fusions startup building out our manufacturing plans for magnets 50 feet in dimension expanding my view of what humans could achieve through rigorous science and engineering. After that I headed out to San Francisco to build out a systems engineering data team at GoogleX’s drone delivery startup giving me valuable experience on what it takes to build and manage engineering teams. While there my aunt was hospitalized from mistreated menopause and I became shocked by how little engineering effort had been applied to improving women’s health especially during menopause. After talking to 350 menopausal women I began building out an engineering team to invent novel forms of menopause relief starting with the symptoms with the most cascading.
How did you get into this industry? Has it been an easy industry to get into or have you had many challenges?
In my experience, the women's health industry stands out as the most inclusive and supportive environment I've been a part of. Unlike many other industries I've worked in, where competition often feels like a zero-sum game, in women's health, there's a prevailing mindset that our collective success leads to mutual benefits. Here, the emphasis is on collaboration and the understanding that assisting others aligns with the shared mission of enhancing women's lives.
How long did it take you to be where you are now? What was the biggest obstacle? What are the challenges of being in the industry you are in?
I have been working on Amira full time for a year and a half but started working on it part time well before. The biggest challenge we have faced is building novel hardware that is reliable at manufacturing scale. Going from a prototype that works some of the time to thousands that work all the time is a huge huge leap that requires a ton of resources, engineers and experience to overcome.
What are your biggest achievements to date?
Seeing the value the hundreds of active users of Amy, our AI menopause education tool have gotten has been incredibly rewarding. What started as a stand-alone tool to engage our waitlist grew into a life of its own guiding women through the wild ride of menopause that no woman is properly prepared for or truly feels seen during. Amy has helped women change their lifestyle, their diet, their workouts and get answers to the questions keeping them up at night that their doctors had not been trained on. Amy is there for them at any time for any type of support, sometimes acting as a therapist or a friend supporting them through the hard times with empathy. I hope in the future every woman experiencing menopause has a resource like Amy to guide her through this uncertain time.
What are the projects you are currently working on?
I am working on building out our launch strategy for Terra establishing partnerships, brand narrative, content and PR.
Is the #WomenInTech movement important to you and if yes, why?
Extremely so. Having been the only woman in almost every job I have had, I know how isolating it can be, how you shrink in your chair being the only other. Having just one other woman in those engineering meetings, in those rooms, would make all the difference for me. I want our women engineers to feel confident, empowered, authentic expressions of themselves. Bringing more women into more decision making rooms was one of the primary reasons I decided to jump off the cliff and start this company. A huge reason women leave their roles just as they are reaching the top of the career later is menopause hitting in late forties causing women to dip out of the marathon in the final mile. We need women in the room. Not just one but many. Each additional woman in a room makes the others more empowered, emboldened, and enabled in their authentic expression of self. Bringing back their sleep enables them to reclaim their power and to stay in the game, to get promoted to the positions of power.
What will be the key trends in your industry in the next five years and where do you see them heading?
I see the industry collecting and generating the data that has been missing. With this new information, care options will expand, personalization will increase, and the accessibility to expert care will dramatically increase through technology .
What is the most important piece of advice you could give to anyone who wants to start a career in this industry?
I think it can be easy to fall into the trap of making something that is tailored to your experience versus the masses. Make sure to stay humble and listen to the consumer at large. Your experience is important and true but women's health is so far from one size fits all so don't over-rotate in your direction.
Who are three inspirational women in your respective industry you admire?
Prinyanka Jain through Evvy has brought an entirely new convention of seeing into our bodies to the masses. They have pioneered a new understanding of ourselves and how to treat a plethora of otherwise unaddressed symptoms.
Find out more about Amira on their website.
