maternal-health
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Sarah O'Leary
Sarah O'Leary is the CEO of Willow Innovations, the Mountain View company that built the first fully in-bra wearable breast pump. She joined Willow in 2019 as VP of Growth, climbed through CMO and Chief Commercial Officer roles, and was named CEO in December 2023. Under her, Willow moved from an e-commerce breakthrough to an omnichannel maternal-health brand, and in 2025 acquired UK femtech rival Elvie to build a scaled global platform. A mother of two who started her career in consulting, she is known for a 'mothers first' philosophy that treats the new mother as the person products should be built around.
Senan Ebrahim
Senan Ebrahim is the founder and CEO of Delfina, a San Francisco digital health company using AI and data science to improve pregnancy care and close gaps in maternal health. A physician-scientist with an MD and a PhD in computational neuroscience from Harvard, he founded Delfina after witnessing a preventable stillbirth during medical training. He earlier founded Hikma Health, a nonprofit building free health-data tools for refugee and low-income patients. Delfina raised a $17M Series A in early 2025 led by U.S. Venture Partners.
Adrianne Nickerson
Adrianne Nickerson is the co-founder and CEO of Oula, a New York maternity company that fuses midwives, OB-GYNs and technology into one hybrid clinic built to give pregnant patients a calmer, more personal, evidence-based birth experience. A Columbia biology grad with a Harvard master's in global health, she decided she could help patients more by not becoming a doctor - and instead builds the systems doctors and midwives work inside. She co-founded Oula in 2019, opened it while pregnant alongside two pregnant co-executives, and has raised tens of millions to expand care that reduces unnecessary C-sections and centers patient voices.
Neil Ray
Neil P. Ray, MD is a board-certified pediatric anesthesiologist who traded the operating room for a startup. As founder and CEO of Raydiant Oximetry, he is building Lumerah, a non-invasive fetal pulse oximeter that reads a baby's oxygen levels through the mother's abdomen, and Daisy, a surgical device to prevent postpartum hemorrhage. His goal: retire a 50-year-old fetal monitor he calls no better than a coin toss, and cut the number of unnecessary C-sections that follow from it.
Amelia Degenkolb
Amelia Degenkolb is the CEO and co-founder of Novocuff, a Mountain View medical device company building the Cervical Control System, a device designed to stabilize the cervix, retain amniotic fluid and prolong pregnancies threatened by preterm premature rupture of membranes. A biomedical engineer who spent seven years as the first employee and lead engineer at Alydia Health, she helped bring the Jada System for postpartum hemorrhage to market before that company's $240M acquisition by Organon. In July 2024 she raised an oversubscribed $26M Series A to fund a U.S. pivotal trial aimed at reducing preterm births, the leading cause of infant mortality worldwide.
Maria Gabriela Salvador
Dr. M. Gabriela Salvador is the CEO of Maternova, Inc., a Providence-based global health company that runs an e-commerce marketplace for vetted, life-saving medical devices, diagnostics and nutrition products aimed at low- and middle-income countries. A physician trained as a pediatric ophthalmologist in Argentina, the United States and Mexico, she spent two decades building high-impact health programs at Americares, Grameen Foundation, Freedom from Hunger and Pro Mujer before taking the helm at Maternova in March 2023. Originally from Salta, Argentina, she pairs a medical degree from the National University of Cordoba with a Harvard MPH in health policy and management.
Steve Xu
Steve Xu is a board-certified dermatologist turned medtech founder who runs Sibel Health, the Chicago company commercializing ICU-grade wearable sensors that now monitor patients in more than 20 countries. A physician-engineer trained at Rice, Harvard, and the London School of Economics, he splits his life between the clinic, the lab at Northwestern's Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics, and a startup chasing a single line: Better Health Data for All.
Andrea Ippolito
Andrea Ippolito is the founder and CEO of SimpliFed, an Ithaca, New York company building a maternal health operating system that delivers virtual breastfeeding, infant nutrition and OB support to families in all 50 states at no cost through health plans. A biomedical engineer by training, she co-directed MIT Hacking Medicine, co-founded Smart Scheduling (acquired by athenahealth in 2016), served as a Presidential Innovation Fellow in the White House, and ran the VA's Innovators Network before turning her own postpartum struggle into a company that now partners with 300-plus health systems and raised an oversubscribed $10.8M Series A in 2026.
Genevieve Lemarchal
Genevieve Lemarchal is the Managing Partner of Suncoast Ventures and Head of Healthcare at Expert Dojo, one of Southern California's most active pre-seed venture funds. A serial entrepreneur turned investor, she focuses on early-stage healthcare startups tackling critical gaps in addiction recovery, maternal care, chronic disease management, and digital health. With a portfolio spanning 35+ companies across 7 countries, she champions underrepresented founders - 50% female, 37-43% from underrepresented backgrounds - and hosts the AdVentureous Podcast, where she interviews entrepreneurs and VCs about building companies that matter.
Eric Dy
Eric Dy, PhD is the co-founder and CEO of Bloomlife, a San Francisco-based women's health company building connected care solutions for maternal and fetal monitoring. A biomedical engineer by training (Cornell BSc, UCLA MSc and PhD), Dy spent four years at IMEC - Europe's leading R&D institute - establishing 17 partnerships worth $25M+ in revenue before launching Bloomlife in 2014. His personal experience watching his wife navigate a high-risk pregnancy - gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, placental complications, preterm labor, and a son who spent his first month in the NICU - drove him to attack the most underserved gap in American healthcare. Bloomlife's FDA-cleared MFM-Pro wearable lets high-risk pregnant patients be monitored at home, replacing the endless clinic visits that define the current broken system. The company raised a $12.2M Series A in September 2024 and has secured reimbursement across 18 payers.
Maneesh Jain
Maneesh Jain is the CEO and Co-founder of Mirvie, a South San Francisco-based biotech company pioneering RNA-based blood tests to predict pregnancy complications like preeclampsia and preterm birth months before symptoms occur. A serial entrepreneur with 20+ years in life sciences and more than $1.5B in combined exits across five prior startups - including Ion Torrent (acquired by Life Technologies) and Cirina (acquired by GRAIL) - Jain trained at the Stanford Genome Technology Center and holds a BS from Caltech and a Master's in Applied Physics from Stanford. Mirvie has raised over $90 million from investors including Khosla Ventures, GV, General Catalyst, and the Gates Foundation, and received FDA Breakthrough Device Designation for its preeclampsia risk test in 2022.