FemTech Focus

In today’s episode, I interview Heather Bowerman, the CEO, and founder of DotLab. DotLab is a women’s healthcare technology company with a breakthrough, non-invasive, blood test that aids in the diagnosis of active endometriosis. Today, 1 in 10 women and people with menstrual cycles suffer from endometriosis. But it takes an average of 7 to 10 years to receive a diagnosis. That’s 120 excruciating periods. The lack of innovation in this space is because painful periods have been normalized for far too long and there aren’t enough tools to catch the disease early. DotLab measures microRNAs in the blood that acts as a unique signature to identify active endometriosis across all stages of the disease, regardless of hormones, cycle, or symptoms. Learn more at https://www.dotlab.com

Ok femfans, in today’s episode I interview Leah Sparks the CEO and founder at Wildflower Health. Wildflower Health is a healthcare software tool that accelerates virtual and value-based care between physicians, insurance companies, and the patient. They engage patients with a combination of high-tech and high-touch support. Telehealth and healthcare software that connect doctors, patients, and insurance may seem like old news especially after this past year with Covid-19. But Wildflower has been doing this for women’s health since 2012 with their maternal health app. Today, they support the entire ecosystem - the provider, the payer, and the family - with a clinically-integrated solution that is purpose-built to advance more effective, efficient care, as well as the payment models that fuel it. Learn more at https://www.wildflowerhealth.com

Funk It Wellness is a cycle support company that builds products and community to support menstruators through their hormonal journey. Their products include a seed cycling kit to support PMS symptoms and an organic maca concentrate for increasing libido. The founder and CEO, Kate Morton, is a Registered Dietitian with a Master’s Degree in Human Clinical Nutrition and a passion for talking about periods & hormones. A little over 4 years ago she got off birth control after years and years and experienced all of the side effects of hormonal imbalance which lead her to create Funk It. Funk It is a 100% food-based hormone support company with its star product being their Seed Cycling Kits. Don’t know what seed cycling is? Tune in to find out more! Use promocode "femtech" at https://www.funkitwellness.com for 20% off your order.

Meet the newest women's health and wellness venture fund, Coyote Ventures. Coyote Ventures is a Seed-stage venture fund in the United States investing in companies innovating in women’s health and wellness. Jessica Karr is the General Partner and Dr. Brittany Barreto is the co-founding FemTech Partner of Coyote Ventures. As scientists (MS in Biochemistry and PhD in Genetics) with entrepreneurial (Impossible Foods) and venture experience (Capital Factory), Jessica and Brittany are uniquely positioned to empower our portfolio companies in the women’s health and wellness space. https://www.coyote.ventures

Crave aims to make buying and using a sex toy an elevated experience. One that leads to fulfillment and thoughtful conversations about sexuality. All of Crave’s products are designed and developed by our women-led team in their advanced R&D center and micro-factory in San Francisco. Ti Chang is an award-winning industrial designer committed to creating innovative products with years of experience working in designing products for women. At Crave, Ti leads the design vision of the company’s full line of products and has been the leading voice in bringing modern sex toys into the mainstream. Use promocode FEMTECH for a free engravement on your sex toy, www.lovecrave.com

AOA is a team of entrepreneurs and experts that bring innovative, impactful and cost-effective medical technologies from research and development into the hands of providers and patients. AOA's mission is to bring to market the first accurate early stage ovarian cancer diagnostic test that will improve clinical practice, help reduce patient mortality and deliver cost savings to payers.Their first product, is the first liquid biopsy test that accurately enables early diagnosis of ovarian cancer through the analysis of tumor marker gangliosides. This episode features an interview with Oriana Papin-Zoghbi, the CEO and Co-Founder of AOA Dx. She has global experience creating and leading teams and organizations resulting in successful strategic exits. ​Oriana brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise from women's health startups and large life science companies, and a passion for entrepreneurship and solving problems that disproportionately affect women.

Carli Sapir is a Founding Partner of Amboy Street Ventures, a venture capital fund investing in Seed and Series A sexual health & women’s health technology startups that are progressing the industry in America and Europe. She is also the Founder of the Female Founded Club (FFC), a global platform that introduces VC investors to high-quality female founded startups. Carli has an affinity for startups in the sexual health and women's health technology landscape due to personal health experiences. While running the FFC, she recognized that the lack of venture capital flowing to the SH&WHT market is stunting the growth of startups that tackle significant health problems for all genders. Prior to Amboy Street Ventures, Carli worked in private equity and engineering. We discussed VICE clauses, FemTech startups Carli is excited about and the Healthy Pleasure Group.

Check out Amboy Street Ventures at www.amboystreet.vc

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Rosemary Morgan, PhD, is an Associate Scientist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Department of International Health. Dr. Morgan has expertise in gender, gender analysis, and intersectionality within health and health systems. Some of her current work includes: Leading the Sex and Gender Analysis Core for the NIH funded Sex and Age Differences in Immunity to Influenza (SADII) Center; co-primary investigator on a project exploring the gendered effects of COVID-19 in Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria, DRC, and Brazil; co-primary investigator for the project Risk and Resilience in the Health Workforce: Understanding and Supporting the Experiences of Women Health Workers during COVID-19 in British Columbia, Canada; and Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) advisor for Learning, Acting and Building for Rehabilitation in Health Systems Consortium (ReLAB-HS). She also coordinates an international Gender and COVID-19 Working Group. We discussed differences between gender and sex, how gender bias is embedded in the healthcare system, how COVID-19 and vaccines affect women differently.

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Marissa Fayer is the Founder and CEO HERHealthEQ, a social enterprise non-profit on a mission to close the gap in health equity around the world by provide medical devices to detect non-communicable diseases in developing countries. Marissa is a 20-year medtech executive, entrepreneur, and philanthropis and also serves as the president of advisory firm Fayer Consulting LLC, Executive Vice-President of Women’s Health at DeepLook Medical, and Venture Partner at Assiduity Capital. Marissa has also previously served as an executive at Hologic, Olympus, Maquet-Gettinge, Providien Medical, and Accumed Innovative Technologies. She serves on the board of medtech companies Welwaze Medical, DeepLook Medical, and PMD Medical. Marissa graduated from Boston University with a BS in Manufacturing Engineering and from University of Connecticut with an MBA and is a TEDx Speaker (2019 at TEDxLugano), and has been listed as one of the Top 100 Women in Medtech in 2018, a Top Woman Activist to Watch, awarded the 2018/9 Africa Development Award, a Wonder Women in Medtech in 2017, has spoken globally and been published widely. We discussed how HERHealthEQ came about, barriers to donating medical equipment and barriers to care in developing countries.

Check out HERHealthEQ at www.herhealtheq.org

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Melanie Goldey is the COO & CFO at TMRW Life Sciences, a fertility tech company bringing safety, security, and automation to the long-term care and storage of the frozen eggs and embryos at the heart of nearly every IVF birth.

Before TMRW, Melanie was CFO at Refinery29, where she led the company’s merger with Vice Media Group, creating the largest digital media company in the world, valued at over $4 billion. Prior to Refinery29, Melanie was an executive at Everyday Health, a multi-platform digital healthcare company using data and technology to service patients, professionals, payers, and providers. There, she helped grow the company’s capabilities through acquisitions, a $100 million IPO, and ultimately to acquisition by J2 Global/Ziff Davis for nearly $500 million. Melanie was previously a technology banker at J.P. Morgan. Melanie graduated with her BA in Economics from Wellesley. We discussed the power of community combined with technology, the egg freezing and thawing process, democratizing IVF and fertility services and women in STEM.

Check out TMRW at www.tmrw.org

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