In this episode, Dr. Aznavour shares her inspiring transition from practicing ObGyn to becoming a femtech entrepreneur, candidly discussing the challenges of fundraising as a female founder in the biotech space. She explains how her clinical experience motivated her to develop a diagnostic solution for women suffering from undiagnosed endometriosis. 

Endometriosis affects around 10% of women of reproductive age, diagnosis takes up to 8 years and requires surgery. Endometrics develops a solution for diagnosing endometriosis non-invasively by identifying specific genomic features of endometrial cells. 

The startup Endometrics went through the Berkeley Skydeck accelerator, which helped Yana and her co-founder build a network of biotech founders and experts in laboratory diagnostics, set up a lab, and secure a pre-seed round. 

Key Questions Explored:

Want to hear more about Yana’s incredible journey from idea to innovation? Tune in to our podcast, where she shares invaluable insights on navigating the challenges of femtech entrepreneurship, building a biotech startup, and breaking barriers in women’s health.

In this episode, we talk to Pam Miles, founder of Apothercare, the first company to conduct product testing on the vaginal microbiome.

Pam candidly shares her entrepreneurial journey in the femtech space, describing how Apothercare evolved from a personal project making cannabis-based products for menstrual pain relief to a scientific venture focused on vaginal health.

Pam recounts the challenges of navigating a nascent industry, including difficulties in securing funding and partnerships with academic institutions due to cannabis's legal status.

She provides insights into the surprising lack of testing requirements for intimate care products and Apothercare's mission to change that.

The conversation dives deep into the realities of startup life, with Pam offering a refreshingly honest perspective on the struggles of fundraising, especially in the femtech space. She shares her experiences with accelerators, pitching to venture capitalists, and the importance of having a strong support system.

Pam's journey highlights the perseverance required in pushing scientific boundaries and creating consumer demand for safer products. Her story serves as both inspiration and a reality check for aspiring entrepreneurs, emphasizing the need for financial backup and realistic expectations when embarking on a startup journey.

The episode concludes with a powerful message about the importance of honesty and mutual support within the founder ecosystem, reminding listeners of the challenges and rewards of being a visionary in an emerging field.

In this inspiring episode, Stiliyana Minkovska, a qualified architect, female-centered healthcare designer, and founder of Matrix, shares her entrepreneurial journey in the femtech space. Her work focuses on transforming healthcare environments and has been exhibited at the Design Museum in London.

Stiliyana's dream of studying architecture at the Royal College of Art took an unexpected turn when she became pregnant and questioned the highly medicalized and masculine nature of birthing spaces. This sparked the idea for Matrix—a digitally-enabled speculum alternative aiming to revolutionize gynecological protocols through women-led design innovation.

The episode explores:

Tune in to gain insights from Stiliyana's journey and be inspired by her resilience and innovation in the femtech space. Don't miss this captivating episode!

In this episode, we talk to Emma Murphy, founder and CEO of Eating Freely, a network training professionals in emotional eating treatment.

She candidly shares her entrepreneurial journey in the femtech space. As a world-leading expert on emotional eating and binge eating disorders, Emma describes how her personal experience with a friend's trauma inspired her unique approach combining psychology, nutrition, and coaching.

She recounts the harsh lessons learned from previously raising $300,000 in venture capital funding that ultimately failed. Emma opens up about the deep depression she experienced post-failure, but how reframing it as a learning opportunity allowed her to bootstrap her way to success with Eating Freely.

The conversation dives into the pros and cons of bootstrapping versus seeking outside investment. Emma provides a refreshingly honest perspective on the pitfalls of VC and angel funding that many founders overlook, such as loss of control and burdensome investor pressures.

Her wisdom reminds us that money management discipline and operating lean are crucial for bootstrapped businesses. 

Welcome to FemTech Real Money Talks, a podcast about fundraising in female technology.

And my name is Elena Lipilina, I am a founder of Visible Sports and I am the host of this podcast.

Here we're discussing fundraising for startups in FemTech on different stages of their development, different markets, countries and different types of products.

We are going to speak with the start-up founders, we are especially interested in female founders. Also we are inviting investors, fundraisers, the representatives of accelerators, foundations and agencies that provide the research in FemTech and fundraising

Let's go!