The Womens Wellness Show

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Sioned Fôn Jones co-founder of BoobyBiome and award-winning scientist with a PhD in Biophysics. Alongside co-founders Dr Lydia Mapstone and Dr Tara O'Driscoll, Sioned is doing something truly rare: building a science-led company in a space that barely existed before they arrived.

We get into the breast milk microbiome, the staggering research gap (we know more about tomatoes, coffee and wine than breast milk), and why that gap is not accidental. It sits at the intersection of women's health and infant health, two of the most historically underfunded areas in science, and BoobyBiome is determined to change that.

The episode covers the origin story of both products: the live microbiome drop developed to give every baby a foundational microbiome regardless of how they are fed, and the preservation device born out of a serendipitous discovery about oxygen's impact on stored breast milk. Sioned walks us through the full funding journey, from a £750k pre-seed in 2022 led by VenRex, to a £2.5M seed in 2025 led by Empirical Ventures, alongside six Innovate UK grants totalling £2.6M after five failed applications first.

We also explore the very real challenge of not fitting neatly into any investor category: too consumer for deep tech VCs, too science-heavy for consumer VCs, and not quite femtech enough for women's health funds. Sioned shares how they navigated that, built conviction without a launched product, and used community, surveys, waitlists and strategic board members to prove product-market fit.

This is a brilliant episode for any founder who is having to educate the market as much as build for it.

Topics covered: The science of the breast milk microbiome and why it has been so overlooked How BoobyBiome's two products came to exist and why both matter Fundraising at the intersection of biotech and consumer Winning Innovate UK grants and what that took Building a board and advisory network from day one Community-led development without lived experience as founders Navigating partnerships with potential competitors Keeping focus when progress feels invisible

Get involved with BoobyBiome: BoobyBiome are actively looking for mothers to join their beta testing and pilot launch for the preservation device, as well as ongoing breast milk donations to support their research. Find out how to donate breast milk and join the study here.

Connect with Sioned: LinkedIn BoobyBiome [email protected]

Our podcast sponsor is Progyny Global. A company that provides best-in-class fertility, pregnancy, postpartum and menopause benefits for the modern global workforce. Progyny Global offers an inclusive platform that connects employees with top experts, clinics, and treatments around the world. To learn more visit: https://progynyglobal.com/#contact or to get in touch with our team directly via email ([email protected])

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Dr. Meenakshi Jhala is an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow, Co-Founder of Tiny Ventures, and Chief of Staff at Synthax. Her mission is to have a global positive impact on human life — operating across clinical medicine, research, and investment.

In this episode we cover:

• Meenakshi's journey from medical school to the intersection of medicine, research, and VC
• How working with Millbleep and publishing research in BMJ Innovations opened her eyes to health tech
• Her time as a venture analyst at RISE, a digital health VC fund
• Why she believes doctors make great investors — and what skills from medicine transfer directly to the world of startups and VC
• The founding story of Tiny Ventures and its unique competition format: teams of four conducting live due diligence in front of senior VC judges
• The real challenges of building community from scratch — venues, judges, and juggling an obs & gynae rotation
• How to pitch partnerships when you don't have capital, and the value of bringing talent and senior VCs into the same room
• Her role at Synthax, building a voice-first operating system for specialty clinics in the US
• Identity and conviction as a founder — why believing in yourself isn't a soft skill
• The importance of operating as your future self, not your present self

Connect with Meenakshi: LinkedIn

Links mentioned: Tiny Ventures | Synthax

Our podcast sponsor is Progyny Global. A company that provides best-in-class fertility, pregnancy, postpartum and menopause benefits for the modern global workforce. Progyny Global offers an inclusive platform that connects employees with top experts, clinics, and treatments around the world. To learn more visit: https://progynyglobal.com/#contact or to get in touch with our team directly via email ([email protected])

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Dr Chrysi Sergaki is the founder and CEO of XX Innovation, a not-for-profit organisation driving systems change in women's health. With seven years at the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), she brings deep experience across policy, regulation, research, innovation and investment — and a rare ability to align the full range of stakeholders needed to drive real change. Her pivot to XX Innovation came after writing a landmark paper on the untapped potential of vaginal microbiome diagnostics, which opened her eyes to just how fragmented the women's health ecosystem truly is.

The real meaning of ecosystem — why the term is routinely misused to mean just startups and investors, and why that framing is part of the problem.

Fragmentation across the full pathway — from regulation and NHS access through to investment incentives and patient involvement, and why each breakdown point needs its own solution.

Regulation is not the enemy — why the fear of the regulatory process is a perception problem, not a reality, and why it is never too early for founders to engage with the MHRA.

Misaligned investment incentives — why the lack of a clear return pathway pushes companies toward wellness when the real need is diagnostics and therapeutics.

The knowledge gap — how little we still understand about female physiology, and why that blocks meaningful progress across the whole system.

Advice for founders — decide who you are, engage the regulator early, think about your clinical validation, and always centre the patient.

Accountability in action — why enthusiasm without follow-through is noise, and how to test partners early with small concrete actions.

• 🌐 XX Innovation website
• 💼 Dr Chrysi on LinkedIn
• 💼 XX Innovation on LinkedIn
• 📸 XX Innovation on Instagram

Our podcast sponsor is Progyny Global. A company that provides best-in-class fertility, pregnancy, postpartum and menopause benefits for the modern global workforce. Progyny Global offers an inclusive platform that connects employees with top experts, clinics, and treatments around the world. To learn more visit: https://progynyglobal.com/#contact or to get in touch with our team directly via email ([email protected])

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Elena Rueda is the founder and CEO of Dama Health, on a mission to end the trial-and-error method of prescribing hormone therapies — from contraception through to menopause and HRT. She completed a Master's in Entrepreneurship at Imperial, built the company while working full-time at Merck, and draws her resilience from her mother — one of the only female detectives in 1980s Madrid.

Connect with Elena on LinkedIn

Dama Health uses pharmacogenetic and epigenetic research to personalise contraception and ob-gyn decisions for clinicians and patients. Backed by Illumina for Start-ups and KQ Labs, they've built a biobank of 1,200+ women and are now live across US clinic sites. Clinicians can try Dama Assist free for 14 days.

Follow on LinkedIn · Instagram

The origin story — A one-minute GP appointment and a bag of pills she knew nothing about sent Elena down a research rabbit hole. A PubMed-powered spreadsheet she used to advise housemates was v1 of Dama Health — six years before it became a business.

Business plans in women's health — In a space where commercialisation is harder and investor scrutiny is higher, Elena makes the case for putting numbers on paper early. Numbers can defend you in the room in a way words can't.

Building on the side — Elena worked full-time at Merck while fundraising for Dama. Her co-founder Paulina was completing F1 rotations. Neither went all in before the money arrived — and you don't have to either.

Skipping the VCs — Strategic angels — doctors, biotech founders, academics — opened clinical doors and gave product feedback no VC could at that stage. Family offices followed. She's now a year and a half without a raise, focused on clean unit economics before going back to market.

Going to market in the US — Their Yale-based CMO was the anchor. The NHS's post-COVID constraints made the decision easy. Within months they had five pilot sites in Philadelphia. Elena describes the US as a "yes culture" — faster introductions, faster momentum.

The EMMA Consortium — Dama joined two other companies to apply for a $3M US grant to build a shared precision medicine platform for endometriosis. Elena explains why collaboration is rare, how grant funding unlocks it, and how they've structured IP so the platform survives even if one company doesn't.

🌐 damahealth.com · 🤖 damaassist.com · 🤝 EMMA Consortium

Our podcast sponsor is Progyny Global. A company that provides best-in-class fertility, pregnancy, postpartum and menopause benefits for the modern global workforce. Progyny Global offers an inclusive platform that connects employees with top experts, clinics, and treatments around the world. To learn more visit: https://progynyglobal.com/#contact or to get in touch with our team directly via email ([email protected])

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Sheelpa Patel. CEO & Founder Mavens & Mavericks

https://www.mavensmavericks.com/ 

Sheelpa Patel is the founder and CEO of Mavens & Mavericks, a marketing and scaling advisory working at the intersection of technology, education, and commercial reality. After 20+ years in global brand, marketing, and business transformation roles including pioneering one of the world's first corporate startup accelerators at Nissan across Southeast Asia and North America.

She left the corporate world to help entrepreneurs at every stage of their journey. She is also a Senior Advisory Board Member at the King's Entrepreneurship Lab, University of Cambridge, where she spearheaded Spark, the first professionally-led incubator at King's College helping PhDs turn their ideas into investable pitches.

The origin of Mavens & Mavericks — how running Infinity Lab at Nissan, working with 100+ entrepreneurs, lit a fire that led Sheelpa to leave the corporate world entirely.

The Spark Incubator — a four-week, professionally-led residential programme for PhDs and postgrads, combining fundraising, business model, brand, legal and storytelling — culminating in an Investor Demo Day at King's College.

The biggest blind spots for PhD founders — focus above everything else, and the challenge of translating brilliant science into commercial language.

Building a company narrative — why the baseline story must stay consistent across every channel and audience, and how it anchors everything from hiring to investor pitches.

Storytelling for different platforms — always start with the audience and the desired outcome, then let that drive your content strategy and channel mix.

The power of partnerships — especially for early stage founders, partnerships are about borrowing trust and reaching new audiences. Everyone has something to bring to the table.

Customer traction over technology — the tech is a given; what investors want to see is proof you've been out talking to real customers.

Maintaining story alignment as you grow — why the mission stays consistent even as the narrative evolves, and the importance of building the right team around you at the right stage.

D&I under marketing — Sheelpa's experience making diversity and inclusion a marketing-led function, and the menopause charter that changed how she thinks about women's health.

• Build your narrative first — everything else flows from it.
• Outcome-driven content beats volume every time.
• Community is defensibility, especially in women's health.

LinkedIn | Mavens & Mavericks | King's eLab

Our podcast sponsor is Progyny Global. A company that provides best-in-class fertility, pregnancy, postpartum and menopause benefits for the modern global workforce. Progyny Global offers an inclusive platform that connects employees with top experts, clinics, and treatments around the world. To learn more visit: https://progynyglobal.com/#contact or to get in touch with our team directly via email ([email protected])

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Clio Wood is a women's health advocate, journalist, author, and co-founder of CensorHerShip alongside Anna O'Sullivan. She founded postnatal and menopause education company Ambrieve over a decade ago, and began noticing the suppression of honest, medically-backed content about women's bodies — from breastfeeding advice to menopause support. That pattern became a campaign.

The censorship data — 95% of organisations surveyed have experienced digital suppression in the last 12 months. Nearly 40% experienced 10 or more instances in a single year — and Cleo believes the true figure is much higher.

Why reach is a health issue — Suppressing women's health content isn't a vanity problem. It restricts access to medically-backed advice, breast cancer screening prompts, and the kind of information women need to self-advocate — especially in a system where 85% of women report being dismissed by a medical professional.

The double standard — Playboy's Instagram runs freely. Erectile dysfunction ads are everywhere. But content about vaginal lubrication and breast cancer screening gets flagged and removed. The bias is stark and consistent.

Financial services bias — It isn't just social media. FemTech founders are being refused bank accounts, kicked off payment platforms without notice, and denied insurance — often because the word "vagina" in a business description triggers an automated high-risk flag. Cleo's report The Bias Burden surfaces these cases in detail.

What Censor Her Ship is building — Parliamentary lobbying, a Women's Health Visibility Alliance, super complaints via Ofcom, challenges under the EU Digital Services Act, a new social media algorithm in partnership with Communia and Reliable AI, and Femtech — a world-first accreditation system connecting bias-free providers with vetted FemTech businesses.

Own your audience — Social media is a black box. Mailing lists and communities you own aren't. One founder had 30,000 subscribers with enormous open rates versus 10–20k Instagram followers — and the list was the real business.

• Women's health censorship has real health and economic consequences — it isn't a reach problem, it's an access problem.
• As a FemTech founder, build your mailing list from day one. Don't rely solely on platforms that can suppress you.
• When Censor Her Ship wins, the whole sector rises.

• CensHership white paper.
• Share your censorship experience — survey via Future Fem Health
• Clio Wood on LinkedIn

Our podcast sponsor is Progyny Global. A company that provides best-in-class fertility, pregnancy, postpartum and menopause benefits for the modern global workforce. Progyny Global offers an inclusive platform that connects employees with top experts, clinics, and treatments around the world. To learn more visit: https://progynyglobal.com/#contact or to get in touch with our team directly via email ([email protected])

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Marina Gerner is the author of The Vagina Business: The Innovative Breakthroughs That Could Change Everything in Women's Health. She holds a PhD from the LSE, is a professor at NYU, and has been a journalist for over 15 years — bringing academic rigour and accessible storytelling to the systemic barriers facing women's health innovation.

The origin story — 9 in 10 first-time mothers experience a birth injury. The last major innovation in standard birth care was the epidural, popularised in the 1950s. That gap is what sent Marina down this rabbit hole.

Why stigma is the root cause — When a topic is too uncomfortable to discuss, problems go unrecognised and unfunded. One investor is quoted saying he doesn't want to talk about vaginas at his Monday morning partner meeting.

The VC funding reality — Only 0.25% of all companies receive VC. Of that, just 2–4% goes into women's health. Female founding teams get roughly 1–2% of all VC despite making up 20–40% of founders.

The gender congruence trap — Female founders raise more easily in fashion, beauty, and children's products. Women's health sits in an awkward middle — too stigmatised for some investors, too hardware-heavy for others. A double bind Marina calls the "lack of fit bias."

The craft beer study — Consumers expected beer made by a woman to taste worse and paid less for it. Two things closed the gap: external validation and domain expertise in the evaluator.

Promotion vs prevention questions — Investors ask female founders how they'll handle losses; they ask male founders what success looks like. When you get a prevention-based question, answer with a promotion-based frame.

Practical strategies — Apply for awards and grants actively. Look up previous recipients and reach out. Grants are non-dilutive funding and a powerful third-party validation signal — a dual benefit many founders underestimate.

• Seek external validation proactively — awards, grants, press. Don't wait for it to come to you.
• Spin prevention questions into promotion answers in every pitch.
• Investing in women's health is a commercial opportunity, not a social impact play.

LinkedIn · Instagram · Substack · The Vagina Business

Our podcast is sponsored by:

Progyny Global. A company that provides best-in-class fertility, pregnancy, postpartum and menopause benefits for the modern global workforce. Progyny Global offers an inclusive platform that connects employees with top experts, clinics, and treatments around the world. To learn more visit: https://progynyglobal.com/#contact or to get in touch with our team directly via email ([email protected])

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gail Armstrong is one of the UK's most prominent women's health investors and the founder of Lavender Ventures, a platform she built after COVID to combine early-stage investing with mentorship and community. With a background in financial services and four years deep in the femtech ecosystem, Gail has a rare view from both sides of the table, sitting with founders day-to-day while co-investing alongside leading VCs.

In this episode, we get into the stuff founders often only hear off the record.

We cover:

• How Gail founded Lavender Ventures and why the combination of capital, mentorship and community matters at the earliest stages
• How the women's health investment landscape has shifted — from a lack of early-stage investors to a growing ecosystem of angels, generalist VCs and dedicated femtech funds
• Why consumer apps are a harder sell to investors right now, and what founders in that space need to think about differently
• The disconnect between where the investment world is heading (cardiovascular, autoimmune, ovarian health) and where many women still are in their own health education and awareness
• Why VCs and founders have more in common than founders might think — and how understanding a VC's position helps you work with them more effectively
• The misalignment that can happen when fund timelines create pressure that doesn't always serve the company's best interests
• Who should genuinely consider bootstrapping or grants instead of chasing VC
• Gail's practical tips for engaging with investors — from building relationships before you're ready to raise, to keeping meticulous records of feedback and following up when you've addressed it
• Why negotiating your term sheet is not only acceptable — it's expected, and what it signals to investors about how you'll run your business
• How to communicate with your investors in a way that brings them on the journey, especially when things are hard
• Why transparency about legal or operational issues matters more than founders realise — and what happens when it's missing
• The case against using agents to spam investors on your behalf, and a smarter alternative

Gail also shares some memorable real-world stories from her own portfolio, including a deal she pulled at the eleventh hour after reading 200 pages of legal documents over a weekend — and what that revealed about founder transparency.

Connect with Gail:

• Website: lavendervc.com
• LinkedIn: Gail Armstrong
• Lavender Ventures on LinkedIn

Our podcast sponsor is Progyny Global. A company that provides best-in-class fertility, pregnancy, postpartum and menopause benefits for the modern global workforce. Progyny Global offers an inclusive platform that connects employees with top experts, clinics, and treatments around the world. To learn more visit: https://progynyglobal.com/#contact or to get in touch with our team directly via email ([email protected])

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Karli Büchling is the founder and CEO of Blake Health (previously known as Yoni Health), a Techbio start-up breaking new ground in women's health research. Her fascination with menstrual blood began in 2007, long before it was a topic anyone wanted to talk about. Today she leads strategic partnerships, fundraising, and the mission to close the gender health gap and destigmatize menstrual health globally

Blake Health is building the world's most comprehensive menstrual blood biobank, empowering women to transform a natural monthly cycle into a crucial resource for scientific research. Menstrual blood contains over 800 unique proteins and stem cells comparable in quality to those found in bone marrow, yet fewer than 700 studies exist on it globally, compared to over 15,000 on sperm. Blake Health is on a mission to change that, supporting research into conditions affecting over 1.6 billion women, including endometriosis, PCOS, fibroids, and beyond

You can join the waitlist do donate your menses blood here

Progress at Blake Health over the last 18 months, including a partnership with the University of Warwick, development of an at-home collection kit that removes barriers to participation, making menstrual blood compatible with existing life sciences equipment, and the near-finalised agreement with a major international biobank partner

Category creation and what it really means for founders Karli shares why she pivoted her thinking from building a biotech company to building a "tech bio" company, and how that distinction changes everything from how you pitch to how you structure partnerships

The million pound investment she walked away from and why turning down money was the right decision when it conflicted with her values around responsible data collection from women

IP strategy and Freedom to Operate analysis in a space where your competitors are also your collaborators, and why that creates real complexity even for experienced IP teams

Memorandums of Understanding as a middle ground how Karli uses MOUs to build investor confidence before full contracts are in place, particularly when working with large international organisations where contracts can take months

Alternative revenue strategies — from offering project management support to life sciences researchers, to providing standalone collection kits, to soft-committed grant funding from Horizon Europe, and why Karli believes women's health founders need to talk more openly about generating revenue early

Why she looks outside of women's health for partnerships and why companies with no prior knowledge of the gender health gap have often been her most valuable collaborators, because they already have infrastructure to offer and a genuine gap to fill

Practical advice for early-stage founders on building relationships and networks, finding events outside the women's health bubble, approaching potential competitors as potential partners, and the value of a strong CFO from day one

• There are over 15,000 studies on sperm and fewer than 700 on menstrual blood
• Diagnostics for women's health conditions currently take 7–12 years to develop. Blake Health's model aims to compress that to 6–8 years
• Creating a new category is exciting, but it creates real challenges with TAM calculations, investor timelines, and IP analysis
• Revenue generation and mission-driven work are not mutually exclusive — in fact, early revenue may be what keeps your mission alive
• The most valuable partnerships might come from outside your sector entirely

Our podcast sponsor is Progyny Global. A company that provides best-in-class fertility, pregnancy, postpartum and menopause benefits for the modern global workforce. Progyny Global offers an inclusive platform that connects employees with top experts, clinics, and treatments around the world. To learn more visit: https://progynyglobal.com/#contact or to get in touch with our team directly via email ([email protected])

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Emilė Radytė, PhD studied neuroscience at Oxford and Harvard before starting Samphire Neuroscience which is building wearable neurotechnology medical device solutions for women's health and lifestyle needs. 

Samphire Neuroscience mission is to transform women's health through brain based innovation. Our vision is simple: to create a world where women have access to medical grade solutions that empower them to take control of their health—without compromising on technology, design, or lifestyle.

Building on over 30 years of research and clinical expertise, we’ve developed Nettle, the world's first brain stimulating headband for the at-home alleviation of PMS and period pain symptoms.

Samphire Neuroscience also offers neuroscience-backed cycle tracking via the Samphire app, available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

We discuss:

The brain link to women's health conditions such as endometriosis

The first hypothesis of starting Samphire Neuroscience and how that led to the first prototype

The challenges that come with building in women's health, especially in consumer hardware

The importance of building community, brand personal brand and trust in 2026 when it comes to women's health data and education

US FDA approves home-delivered tDCS for treating depression - what is the future of this space

And much more!

As always any feedback or questions don't hesitate to drop me an email - [email protected]

Our podcast sponsor is Progyny Global. A company that provides best-in-class fertility, pregnancy, postpartum and menopause benefits for the modern global workforce. Progyny Global offers an inclusive platform that connects employees with top experts, clinics, and treatments around the world. To learn more visit: https://progynyglobal.com/#contact or to get in touch with our team directly via email ([email protected])

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.