Femtech At Work

What if the breast pump you rely on at work was finally built around your body, your ambition, and your autonomy, engineered by a mom who refused to let a boardroom of men decide what “good enough” looks like for breastfeeding women?

In this episode of FemTech at Work, we sit down with Australian founder and stunt‑performer‑turned‑entrepreneur, Sally Grice, the CEO of Lacevo, the first black wearable breast pump endorsed by the Australian Breastfeeding Association and now stocked in major retailers like Target US and Baby Bunting.

We explore how Lacevo is helping women breastfeed longer and on their own terms, why word‑of‑mouth and in‑store retail were strategic growth levers, and how billboards about nipple sizes and public pumping controversies are shifting the conversation on breastfeeding at work and in public. If you care about breastfeeding, FemTech, or simply building products that truly serve women’s lives, this episode is for you!

Key Takeaways:

• Learn from Sally’s journey from professional wakeboarder and stuntwoman to building a global FemTech hardware brand for breastfeeding mothers
• How did one painful, failed pumping session in a Zoom meeting become the catalyst for designing a new kind of wearable breast pump
• Why is nipple sizing so misunderstood, and what will you discover about how incorrect sizes drive pain, trauma, and poor pumping outcomes
• How did Sally navigate Chinese manufacturing, skeptical engineers, and a male‑dominated supply chain to create a pump truly designed by and for moms
• Find out about Lacevo’s bold design choices like launching an all‑black wearable and how that ties to empowerment and working motherhood
• How did Lacevo grow from a baby expo in Australia to shelves at Target US and baby bunting, largely through word‑of‑mouth and in‑person retail discovery
• How are public incidents like the Virgin lounge pumping controversy reshaping the debate on breastfeeding and pumping at work and in public spaces
• Understand building an ecosystem around pumping from sizing studios and apps to future products supporting storage, transport, and daily routines

Resources:

Sally Grice: LinkedIn

Lacevo: LinkedIn

Lacevo: https://lacevo.com/

Maaike Steinebach : LinkedIn

Website Femtech Future https://www.femtechfuture.com

Instagram Femtech Future: @femtech_future

If you’ve ever felt forced to choose between your career and breastfeeding, Sally’s story is your reminder that we deserve and can build better. This conversation is part of a much bigger movement to redesign work, products, and policies around women’s real lives.

If this episode resonated with you, don’t keep it to yourself. Share it with a friend, colleague, or leader who needs to hear it, hit like, and leave a review so we can amplify the voices of FemTech founders like Sally even further. You are part of this change.

See you next week for another episode of FemTech at Work, where we continue to spotlight the people rewriting the future of women’s health.

What if the most transformative innovation in childbirth isn’t an app or an algorithm, but a simple, clinician-led medical device that turns “threading a needle in the dark” into a precise, compassionate experience for every mother?

In this episode of FemTech at Work, we sit down with Dr. Densearn Seo, founder and CEO of Gravida Health, to explore how one clinician’s curiosity, frustration and global experience are reshaping labor induction and maternal care.

If you’re a clinician, founder, investor or simply someone who cares about safer births and better maternal outcomes, this episode offers a rare, inside look at what it takes to build high-impact MedTech in women’s health without losing sight of the women and families at the center of it all. Let’s get into it!

Key Takeaways:

• Find out how a curious medical student who never stopped asking “why” became a founder transforming labor induction on a global stage
• Discover why pregnancy and labor are both over-medicalized and under-innovated and what that really means for mothers and clinicians today
• Learn how Gravida Health’s device turns “threading a needle in the dark” into a more precise, comfortable and clinically intuitive labor induction process
• Understand how working across Malaysia, Singapore and Australia shaped Densearn’s view of healthcare equity and women’s health innovation
• Find out why it can take 17 years for medical research to reach the bedside and how Gravida is challenging that timeline for medical hardware
• Discover how a fully clinician-backed cap table changes the way a women’s health startup is funded, built and judged for success
• Learn from Densearn’s perspective on male allyship in FemTech and what responsible, merit-based support for women’s health really looks like
• Understand the biggest funding myths in women’s health, and why simply rebranding “FemTech” as “MedTech” sometimes unlocks investor interest
• Find out the single most practical step clinicians and aspiring founders can take today to improve maternal and perinatal outcomes in their own ecosystem

Resources:

Dr. Densearn Seo: LinkedIn

Gravida Health: LinkedIn

Maaike Steinebach : LinkedIn

Website Femtech Future https://www.femtechfuture.com

Instagram Femtech Future: @femtech_future

The heart of this conversation is a simple but radical idea: women’s health is not just a niche, and birth should never feel like “threading a needle in the dark.” From med school curiosity to clinician-led innovation, Gravida Health’s story shows what’s possible when we refuse to accept discomfort, delay and underinvestment as the status quo in maternal care.

If this episode moved you, be part of the movement. Share it with a friend, colleague or investor who needs to rethink women’s health. Like this episode, leave a review so more people can discover these founders, and help amplify the change they’re fighting for.

Thank you and we’ll see you next week for another exciting episode of FemTech at Work.

What happens when a former accountant, nurse and IVF patient turns her frustration with menopause misinformation into a nationwide movement transforming workplaces across Australia?

In this powerful episode, we have Grace Molloy, founder and CEO of Menopause Friendly Australia, to unpack how one “impatient advocate for women” is changing the way organisations talk about and support menopause at work.

From the role of leadership and HR to the impact of poor medical training, government policy, AI, and gender pay gaps, this conversation is a masterclass for HR leaders, executives and changemakers who want to retain midlife talent, improve psychosocial safety, and normalise menopause as a core workplace wellbeing issue—not a career-limiting secret. Let’s dive in!

Key Takeaways:

• What did Grace discover when she realised that even a nurse from a “women’s health family” knew almost nothing about perimenopause, and how did that spark Menopause Friendly Australia
• Understand the five global standards of a menopause friendly workplace and translate them into real policies, training and culture change instead of one-off awareness days
• The impact of menopause support using data like absenteeism, engagement, policy downloads and training outcomes
• Find out which of the “four compelling reasons” for becoming menopause friendly, gender pay gap, productivity, talent retention, or legal/psychosocial risk matters most in your organisation
• Understand the gaps in GP and medical training, and why that makes workplace education and advocacy so critical for women seeking menopause care
• Discover the practical first steps as an HR or DEI leader to build a business case for menopause support, even in the face of DEI backlash or limited budgets
• Understand the potential risks of AI and job change for women, and how that intersects with existing gender pay and leadership gaps

Resources:

Grace Molloy: LinkedIn

Menopause Friendly Australia: LinkedIn

Menopause Friendly Australia: https://menopausefriendly.au/

Free resources on menopause: https://menopausefriendly.au/news/

Dove x Menopause Friendly: https://menopausefriendly.au/dove/#download

Maaike Steinebach : LinkedIn

Website Femtech Future https://www.femtechfuture.com

Instagram Femtech Future: @femtech_future

Menopause doesn’t have to be a silent struggle or a career-limiting secret. As Grace shows, when workplaces choose to listen, learn and lead, they don’t just support women—they unlock wisdom, loyalty and powerhouse performance across their teams.

If this episode moved you, be part of the movement, share it with a colleague, like it, leave a review so more people can discover these conversations, and join us next week for another episode of Femtech at Work, where we keep rewriting the rules of what thriving at work really looks like.

What happens when a state decides women’s health is non‑negotiable?

Today at FemTech at Work,we have Sally Hasler, CEO of Women’s Health Victoria, to unpack how one Australian state is using policy, research, and partnership to close the gender health gap. From chronic pain and reproductive coercion to AI-driven access and corporate responsibility, this conversation shines a light on what real systems change for women’s health can look like when government, healthcare, femtech, and philanthropy finally pull in the same direction.

If you care about women’s health, femtech, policy change, or just want to understand what it takes to redesign an entire system around equity, this episode is a powerful, practical roadmap.

Key Takeaways:

• How did Sally’s journey from government to the Women’s Foundation in Hong Kong to Women’s Health Victoria shape her mission to tackle gender inequity in health
• What does it really mean in practice when a health system stops treating women as “small men” and starts including sex and gender in every layer of research and care
• How is the Victorian government using policy, funding, and mandatory research requirements to close the gender health gap, and what can other countries understand from this approach
• In what ways does gender-based violence, including reproductive coercion, quietly shape women’s mental and physical health outcomes and how can systems change disrupt this
• How can corporates and insurers learn to apply a gender lens to products, policies, and workplaces so women aren’t penalised for seeking mental health or reproductive care
• Why do women spend up to nine years of their working lives in poor health, and what insights can we gain about the critical role workplaces play in shifting this reality
• In what ways could responsible AI help women anonymously access sexual and reproductive health information 24/7, and what safeguards are needed to avoid amplifying bias

Resources:

Sally Hasler: LinkedIn

Women’s Health Victoria: LinkedIn

Women’s Health Victoria: https://www.whv.org.au/

Maaike Steinebach: LinkedIn

Website Femtech Future https://www.femtechfuture.com

Instagram Femtech Future: @femtech_future

In a world where women are still treated as medical afterthoughts, conversations like this are not just interesting. They’re urgent! Sally’s work in Victoria shows that when we centre women’s lived experiences, demand evidence-based change, and embrace responsible femtech, we don’t just tweak the system, we rewrite it.

If this episode opened your eyes or gave you language for your own story, don’t let it stop here. Share this conversation with a friend, colleague, or policymaker who needs to hear it. Like the episode, leave a review so more people can discover these voices of change, and help us grow a global community that refuses to accept the gender health gap as inevitable.

Thank you for listening! Be part of the movement, keep the conversation going, and I’ll see you next week for another episode spotlighting the people who are reshaping the future of women’s health.

What if the most stressful part of IVF wasn’t the hormones, the scans, or the emotional rollercoaster, but the chaos of managing it all alone at your kitchen table?

In this episode, we meet the doctor-turned-founder who decided that fertility patients deserve better than photocopied instructions and guesswork. Joining us is Dr. Caroline Fiddler, a medical doctor and founder of Cycle Guide, a purpose-built IVF and fertility treatment organizer app. Drawing on her own two-and-a-half-year IVF journey and her career in hospital systems, Caroline shares how witnessing outdated, fragmented processes pushed her to build a simple, intuitive fertility app that helps patients take back control of their treatment.

If you’re going through fertility treatment, building in femtech, or working in healthcare and wondering how to improve patient journeys, this conversation will give you practical insight and emotional validation.

Key Takeaways:

• How did Caroline’s own IVF journey as a single woman and years inside hospital systems lead her to create the Cycle Guide fertility organizer app
• Discover why “simple, intuitive, and flexible” design can be more powerful than feature-heavy fertility platforms
• How does Cycle Guide help patients understand and organise blood tests, ultrasounds, injections, procedures, and trigger shots across an entire IVF cycle
• Learn from the pre-cycle checklist that prepares you for Day 1, tackles clinic contact issues, manages medication storage, and navigates real-life scheduling clashes
• How do Cycle Guide's reminders and colour-coded tasks help patients avoid heartbreaking mistakes, such as missing crucial trigger injections
• Understand the emotional and financial decisions around when to stop collecting your own eggs, change clinics, or consider donor eggs
• How Caroline’s experience highlights the hidden friction inside fertility clinics and hospital systems, and what does that mean for femtech founders
• Learn from Caroline’s honest reflections on rejection, resilience and why she’s still convinced that IVF patients deserve better digital support

Resources:

Caroline Fiddler: LinkedIn

CycleGuide: Instagram

Cycle Guide: https://cycleguide.com.au/

Maaike Steinebach : LinkedIn

Website Femtech Future https://www.femtechfuture.com

Instagram Femtech Future: @femtech_future

In a world where fertility patients still juggle life-changing decisions with paper instructions and fragmented systems, Dr. Caroline Fiddler’s story is a reminder that compassionate innovation can rewrite the experience - one organised, empowered cycle at a time.

If you’re navigating IVF yourself, supporting someone who is, or building the next wave of femtech solutions, this episode is your invitation to believe that the process can be clearer, kinder and more in your control.

If this conversation moved you, be part of the movement! Share this episode with someone who needs it, hit like, leave a review so more listeners can discover these stories, and subscribe so you don’t miss out. See you next week for another episode of FemTech at Work, where we spotlight the founders reshaping women’s health- one bold idea at a time!

What happens when an investor walks away from high finance to rebuild the fertility journey across Asia?

In this episode, you’ll step inside the world of Rhea Fertility & GenPrime and see how one woman is redesigning reproductive care for an entire region. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Margaret Wang, founding CEO of Rhea Fertility and GenPrime, to unpack how she left a global finance career to build one of the Asia’s first truly end-to-end fertility platforms. Margaret shares her deeply personal egg-freezing journey across New York and Singapore, the legal and cultural hurdles unmarried women face in Asia, and how those experiences inspired her to create a more patient-centric, emotionally supportive fertility experience.

Key Takeaways:

• How Margaret's own egg-freezing journey in New York and Singapore inspires her to design a more human and patient-centric fertility experience across Asia
• Discover the end-to-end fertility ecosystem, including consults, labs, and cryopreservation, in five different countries
• How do Asia's diverse fertility laws shape Rhea's strategy, including adding an LA clinic for surrogacy and LGBTQ+ services
• What are the often-overlooked emotional challenges of IVF and egg freezing, and how can simple rituals make a big difference
• How does Rhea partner with tech startups, and what hurdles do they face in getting clinicians to adopt innovative tools
• What's driving investment in women's and reproductive health, and why are global investors betting big on Asia-focused fertility platforms
• How do cultural expectations around marriage, motherhood, age, and solo parenting shape fertility choices for Asian women
• What might you discover about your own fertility, and how could it shift your family planning strategy
• How does Rhea envision growing its services beyond fertility to support women's overall reproductive and hormonal well-being across Asia

Resources:

Margaret Wang: LinkedIn

Rhea Fertility: LinkedIn

Rhea Fertility: https://www.rheafertility.com/

Maaike Steinebach : LinkedIn

Website Femtech Future https://www.femtechfuture.com

Instagram Femtech Future: @femtech_future

Fertility isn’t just a medical journey- it’s emotional, cultural, and deeply personal. Margaret’s story shows what’s possible when we redesign care around women’s real lives, not outdated systems. If this conversation helped you feel seen, informed, or inspired, don’t keep it to yourself.

Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it, leave a review so more women can discover it, and hit follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode. Be part of the movement to build better, more accessible reproductive care for women everywhere and we’ll see you next week for another powerful episode of FemTech At Work.

What happens when a young doctor, failed by the very system she works in, decides to rebuild women's healthcare from the ground up using AI?

Today, we're chatting with Dr. Ariella Heffernan-Marks, founder of Ovum AI, about how her battle with debilitating vestibular migraines exposed the deep biases and data gaps in women's healthcare and sparked a radically different solution. Ariella reveals how Ovum AI works as an AI health partner for women, integrating medical reports, wearables, symptoms, and reproductive health into a longitudinal 'health brain' designed around women's physiology. You'll hear how she moved from medical school to building and funding a FemTech startup, why generic tools like ChatGPT can't safely serve women's health needs, and how a human-first, privacy-obsessed approach to AI is reshaping doctor visits, workplace wellbeing, and women's long-term health. Ariella also lifts the curtain on investor bias, designing for neurodivergent users, and the self-care routines that keep her grounded while she pursues the audacious goal of closing a trillion-dollar gender health gap.

Let's dive in!

Key Takeaways:

• How Ariella's "mystery illness" led her to create Ovum AI, a lifetime health record and AI advocate for women
• How Ovum AI connects periods, perimenopause, chronic illness, and mental health into one intelligent system
• Understand the gender health gap and why women spending 25% more time in poor health, and what does that really cost our economies and careers?
• Find out how Ariella is tackling AI bias head-on
• What does it take to build a women-specific AI from the ground up, instead of just plugging women’s questions into generic large language models?
• Learn why data privacy is non‑negotiable and Ovum's approach to consent, de-identification, and face ID for secure health data upload
• Discover Ovum's B2B strategy and how it supports women's health at work without accessing individual data
• Understand the fundraising journey, what did the right investors see in women's health and AI that skeptics missed? How can founders identify aligned backers?
• Learn from Ariella's founder routine (treating seasons, self-reflection and coaching) as core parts of building a FemTech company.

Resources:

Ariella Heffernan - Marks: LinkedIn

Ovum AI: LinkedIn

Ovum AI: https://www.askovum.com/

Maaike Steinebach : LinkedIn

Website Femtech Future https://www.femtechfuture.com

Instagram Femtech Future: @femtech_future

Ready to see what women’s healthcare can look like when it’s designed by women, for women, and powered by AI that actually understands us? Tune in now and step inside Ariella’s journey from dismissed patient to doctor-founder, building the “smartest AI woman in the world” with Ovum.

If this episode spoke to you, don’t keep it to yourself, be part of the movement to close the gender health gap. Share this conversation with a friend or colleague, hit follow, leave a review, and help us amplify the voices shaping the future of FemTech.

See you next week for another episode of Femtec at Work, where we spotlight the founders, builders and believers driving women's health forward!

What if the biggest breakthrough in fertility care for millions of couples in Asia isn’t AI, but a simple, clinically validated technology that makes IVF-level outcomes finally affordable for the middle class?

In this episode of FemTech at Work, we sit down with Yve Lyppens, founder of Eve Fertility, to explore a bold vision: bringing IVF-like results to lower and middle-income couples across APAC at a fraction of today’s cost. Drawing on 15 years in medtech and 5 years in IVF and infertility, Yve explains how intra-vaginal culture (IVC) uses the woman’s body as a natural incubator instead of an expensive lab, making fertility treatment more accessible without compromising clinical pregnancy rates.

If you’re interested in FemTech, fertility, emerging markets, or mission-driven innovation, this conversation offers a rare, on-the-ground look at what it takes to design the right technology for the right market and to stay mentally resilient along the way.

Key Takeaways:

• How does intra-vaginal culture (IVC) actually work, and why using the body as an incubator be a game-changer for fertility care in Asia?
• Why does IVF costs in Malaysia so high, and what can we discover about how IVC could slash per-cycle expenses for middle-class couples?
• Learn from Malaysia’s role as the first APAC market to adopt IVC and deliver its first IVC baby in 2022?
• How governments in countries like Malaysia, China, and others are responding to declining birth rates
• Why AI-driven fertility add-ons actually increase prices, and learn about choosing “the right tech for the right market” instead?
• What hidden challenges do founders face when fundraising for pre-seed healthtech in APAC, and what can we find out about grants vs. VC capital in the region?
• How does being a male founder in women’s health shape conversations with investors, clinicians, and patients and what surprising dynamics will you discover from Yve’s experience?
• What does the emotional side of founding really look like, and how can we learn from Yve’s strategies to manage mental health, setbacks, and “more down days than up days”?
• How big is the unmet need in fertility, especially for lower and middle-income patients, and what can we understand about building a product specifically for those who are currently excluded?

Resources:

Yve Lyppens: LinkedIn

Maaike Steinebach : LinkedIn

Website Femtech Future: https://www.femtechfuture.com

Instagram Femtech Future: @femtech_future

In a world where fertility treatment is still a privilege for the few, Eve Fertility’s vision is a powerful reminder that innovation should serve those who need it most, not just those who can pay the most. This episode is more than a conversation about technology—it’s a call to rethink who gets access to hope.

If this episode moved you, be part of the movement. Share it with someone who cares about women’s health, fertility, or healthcare equity. Like, subscribe, and leave a review so we can amplify the voices of founders like Yve and bring these stories to more ears across the globe.

Thank you for listening, and see you next week for another episode of FemTech at Work, where we spotlight the people reshaping the future of women’s health.

What does it really take to build a women’s health company in Asia when funding is tight, stigma runs deep, and the stakes are literally people’s futures?

In this very real and unfiltered conversation, I sit down with my long-time friend and serial entrepreneur Anna Haotanto, founder of Zora Health. Anna shares her personal journey—freezing her eggs years before it became 'trendy' and her frustration with the healthcare system that drove her to build a fertility, menopause, and family health platform in Asia, one of the toughest and most complex spaces to operate in. Together, we unpack the emotional and practical realities of building a women’s health company, pitching to investors for a seed round, navigating stigma, regulations, and high treatment costs, and the dark days when Anna almost walked away from Zora.

Raw, honest, and hopeful, this episode is for anyone interested in women’s health, building in FemTech, or needing a dose of real resilience behind the glossy founder stories.

Key Takeaways:

• Discover how a Fintech and F&B founder ended up building Zora Health after thinking she was perimenopausal and hitting multiple medical dead ends
• Learn why egg freezing, IVF, menopause and even sperm health are still wrapped in stigma in Asia and how technology can start to break that
• How Zora Health actually works behind the scenes to connect users with trusted clinics, doctors, diagnostics and care navigators across multiple countries
• Explore why men now make up a significant portion of Zora’s clients, and what this shift reveals about the evolving fertility journeys of couples today
• Find out how corporates really think about fertility and menopause benefits, budgets and internal stakeholders and why selling B2B in health is so complex
• Learn how Anna coped with days of not getting out of bed, and still chose not to quit when everything felt impossible
• Discover what “patient capital” truly means in women’s health
• Find out how genuine human connection and “friction” might be our biggest advantage in an AI world
• Learn the most practical advice Anna has for new FemTech founders in Asia, especially when it comes to monetization, mental health, and playing the long game

Resources:

Anna Haotanto: LinkedIn

Zora Health: LinkedIn

Zora Health: https://zorahealth.co/

Maaike Steinebach : LinkedIn

Website Femtech Future https://www.femtechfuture.com

Instagram Femtech Future: @femtech_future

If this conversation moved you, let it be more than just another episode you listened to on the go. Women’s health in Asia is still being built from the ground up, one founder, one story, one hard conversation at a time and your support genuinely helps that movement grow.

Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it, hit like, leave us a review so more people can discover these voices, and help us push women’s health higher up on every agenda.

Thank you for listening, and see you next year for another episode of FemTech at Work, where we keep building this new future together!

Find out how a PhD biomedical engineer turned founder is building a wearable that cools hot flashes, collects real-world data and reframes menopause from “invisible problem” to solvable public-health priority.

Today, we chat with Mabel Nguyen, co‑founder of Singapore’s EloCare, to unpack the science, product strategy and personal drive behind a startup creating wearable solutions for menopause. Mabel explains why menopause has been overlooked, why hot flashes matter far beyond a few uncomfortable moments, and how a combination of cooling technology and data collection can change diagnosis, care and daily life for millions of women. She shares the technical hurdles of building a new class of wearable, the trade-offs between clinical validation and rapid consumer launch, and the funding route that kept research alive through grants and early VC support. Along the way, Mabel offers candid founder advice about taking the first step, managing mental health during the grind, and what success will look like for her and her team. Let’s dive in!

Key Takeaways:

• Find out why Mabel believes menopause is a public‑health problem, not just a personal discomfort, and what costs are hidden when hot flashes go untreated
• Learn how combining cooling wearables with symptom‑tracking data could change how we recognize and treat menopause
• Discover the unexpected signals and noise that made lab-based hot‑flashes detection fail in real life, and how that led EloCare to reinvent its approach
• Understand why launching first as a consumer wellness product can accelerate iteration, even when clinical validation is a long‑term goal
• Find out how grants, university partnerships and early VC funding shaped EloCare’s R&D path and why each funding type mattered
• Discover the habits that helped Mabel stay resilient and what she does to preserve mental health during the inevitable ups and downs
• Understand what “success” looks like for a Femtech innovator; is it scaling, clinical validation, or simply seeing your product help a woman live better

Resources:

Mabel Nguyen: LinkedIn

EloCare: LinkedIn

EloCare: https://www.elo.care/

Maaike Steinebach : LinkedIn

Website Femtech Future https://www.femtechfuture.com

Instagram Femtech Future: @femtech_future

Mabel’s story is more than a product roadmap, it’s a reminder that quiet, widespread problems deserve bold, science‑backed solutions. From the lab benches of NUS to prototype bracelets and grant partnerships, this conversation shows how empathy, data and iterative design can turn menopause from an invisible burden into a measurable, treatable part of life. If you’ve ever felt ignored by health systems or wondered how founders build hardware that must also be trusted by clinicians and real people, this episode will leave you inspired and equipped to think differently about women’s health.

If this episode moved you, don’t keep it to yourself. Share it with a friend, give us a five‑star review to amplify women’s health stories, and follow the podcast so you never miss an episode that champions founders making real change. Thank you, and see you on our next episode!