womens-health
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The Best Therapy in the World Still Needs Someone to Say Yes
MEYA Health works in the awkward distance between scientific approval and real-world access - where evidence must become a story that payers, health systems and field teams can actually use.
Springboard Found the Women Venture Capital Said It Couldn’t See
For 26 years, the nonprofit accelerator has matched women-led companies with investors, operators and the occasional blunt truth. Its wager is simple: the missing ingredient was never ambition. It was access.
Maven Clinic Spent a Decade Selling Women’s Health to Bosses. Now It’s Coming Back for Everyone
Maven’s first consumer clinic arrived before patients were ready. Employers funded the long detour - and 28 million covered lives later, the company is reopening the front door with a broader bet on women’s health.
Onto Health Bet $28 Million That Fertility Care Should Start Before the Panic
Most fertility businesses sell a treatment after something goes wrong. Onto Health is trying to sell clarity earlier - then use clinics, software and a $20 million Series A to carry patients through what comes next.
The Rice-Sized Sensor Trying to End the IVF Blood-Test Marathon
A fertility patient can give blood every other day for weeks and still miss the hormone surges that decide whether a cycle works. Impli wants to put a continuous read of that biology under the skin - or on it.
Vytal Health Bet Patients Would Pay to Be Heard - Then Built a $300-a-Month Alternative to the 10-Minute Visit
The Milwaukee telehealth practice asks patients to pay outside insurance for time, continuity and deeper testing. Its early obstacle was convincing people that a video visit could still feel human; its sharper 2026 answer is a two-tier membership with unusually clear boundaries.
The Fertility Nurse Who Turned a Broken Vitamin Aisle Into a Women's Health Company
A fertility-clinic nurse kept getting asked the same question about vitamins she couldn't answer well. So she built the answer - a personalized supplement company with a clinician on the other end of the chat.
Twentyeight Health Put Medicaid at the Center - Then Built the Women’s Clinic the Internet Was Missing
The company started with a five-minute birth-control intake. Its bigger bet is that accepting Medicaid, stitching care to insurance and staying useful after the first prescription can turn a commodity telehealth visit into a durable women’s-health platform.
Rael Turned One Better Pad Into a $59 Million Bet on the Whole Cycle
Three Korean American founders entered a stale aisle through Amazon, let reviews do the selling, then stretched one organic-cotton pad into a shelf-spanning cycle-care brand. The clever part is not the cotton. It is the order of operations.
The Pregnancy Test That Could Catch a Killer Before the Doctor Does
Preeclampsia kills tens of thousands of mothers a year, mostly because no one catches it in time. A team that started as classmates in Durham and Kampala wants to move that first warning from the hospital lab to the bathroom shelf.
The Menopause Device Trying to Replace a Prescription With Eight Quiet Minutes
Madorra is betting that therapeutic ultrasound can give people with menopause-related vaginal atrophy something medicine has rarely offered them: a nonhormonal treatment they can use at home. Its pivotal test is now under way.
Emmeline Ventures Is Betting the Next Big Market Is the One Women Already Live In
The early-stage firm sorts opportunity into three human needs - health, wealth, and safety - then backs women founders building the missing infrastructure around them.
The Company That Made IVF an Employee Benefit
How a fertility website became a Nasdaq-listed benefits company covering millions of employees - and why big employers hand it the hardest part of their health plan.
Liv Labs
Liv Labs is a women's health startup (YC S21) commercializing Pippa, a patented internal resistance spring that activates the pelvic floor during everyday movement and exercise. Founded by CEO Melody Roberts and inventor Carly Price, the company pairs the wearable with self-care coaching to help the 78 million American women living with pelvic floor weakness stay strong, active, and leak-free without clinical visits or effortful daily kegel routines.
Knix
Knix is a Toronto-based direct-to-consumer intimate apparel company that pioneered the leakproof underwear category. Founded in 2013 by Joanna Griffiths, it designs machine-washable, reusable period and leakproof underwear, bras, activewear, swimwear and shapewear built for the realities of menstruation, bladder leaks, postpartum and body changes. Known for size-inclusive design and a mission to empower women to be 'unapologetically free,' Knix grew into the #1 leakproof brand in North America and was acquired by Swedish hygiene giant Essity in 2022 in what was reported as the largest exit by a Canadian female founder.
Carrot Fertility
Carrot Fertility is a global fertility and family-building benefits platform that employers and health plans offer to their people. It covers the full journey - fertility preservation, IVF and IUI, pregnancy, adoption, surrogacy, low-testosterone care and menopause - with an expert Care Team, a global provider network, and the Carrot Card payment platform. Founded in 2016 after co-founder Tammy Sun faced a five-figure out-of-pocket egg-freezing bill, Carrot serves members in more than 195 countries and positions itself as a data-driven, outcomes-focused alternative to leaving fertility care to employees to navigate alone.
Fount Bio, Inc.
Fount Bio is a Somerville, Massachusetts life-science company that builds long-lasting hyaluronic acid (HA) matrices directly inside living tissue. Its proprietary Flī-HA platform uses Nobel-Prize-winning bioorthogonal (click) chemistry to deliver HA building blocks that self-assemble in situ into a biostable, high-molecular-weight matrix - overcoming the delivery and degradation barriers that have long forced HA to be injected as pre-formed filler. The lead product, Flī-Derm, is a needle-free liquid for aesthetic dermatology that reduced fine lines and wrinkles in a blinded clinical study and won IMCAS 2024's Innovation of the Year. The tunable platform extends toward ophthalmology, joints, mucosal tissue and women's health.
Helaina
Helaina is a New York-based biotechnology company using precision fermentation to produce human-equivalent bioactive proteins. Its first commercial product, effera, is a human-identical lactoferrin made in yeast that matches the amino acid sequence of the protein found in mother's milk. Founded in 2019 by food scientist Laura Katz, Helaina sells effera as a B2B ingredient to consumer wellness and supplement brands, targeting women's health, gut health, active nutrition and healthy aging. The company has raised roughly $84 million in equity funding, including a $45 million Series B in 2024.
Oova
Oova is a New York-based women's health company that brings lab-grade hormone testing into the home. Founded in 2017 as a Mount Sinai spinout by Dr. Aparna (Amy) Divaraniya, Oova combines urine test strips, smartphone scanning, and AI to quantitatively measure LH, E3G (estrogen metabolite), and PdG (progesterone metabolite), giving women personalized daily insights for fertility, PCOS, cycle health, and perimenopause. The FDA-registered platform is used by consumers and integrated with hundreds of fertility and women's health clinics through a HIPAA-compliant provider dashboard.
Millie
Millie is a San Francisco Bay Area maternity and women's health clinic built around a midwifery-led, tech-enabled model. Founded in 2022 by Anu Sharma after her own near-fatal birth experience, it pairs Certified Nurse Midwives and OB-GYN backup with a dedicated doula (a 'Millie Guide'), a proprietary app, remote monitoring, and virtual visits to cover pregnancy, postpartum, gynecology, and menopause. The company accepts most major insurance and has raised roughly $19 million to date, including a $12M Series A in February 2025 from an all-female roster of investors.
Zaya Care
Zaya Care is a New York-based healthcare company building the largest network of in-network maternal and wellness specialists in the United States. It negotiates insurance contracts on behalf of independent practitioners - pelvic floor therapists, lactation consultants, dietitians, mental health therapists and acupuncturists - and handles credentialing, eligibility and billing so those providers can accept insurance without the administrative burden or financial risk of doing it alone. Inspired by the comprehensive European model of maternity care, Zaya gives small practices the leverage and efficiency of a large health system while letting them stay independent, and gives patients affordable, whole-person care beyond the standard OB-GYN visit.
Aavia
Aavia is a hormone health company building a daily app that helps people with ovaries understand how their ovarian hormones shape their energy, mood, sleep, skin, and sex drive across the cycle. Founded at MIT in 2017, it began with a patented Smart Birth Control Pill Case that senses whether you have taken your pill and reminds you until you do, then grew into an all-in-one tracking and education platform with personalized, science-backed insights, a member community, and a medical advisory board.
Almond ObGyn
Almond ObGyn is a Los Angeles-based, tech-enabled obstetrics and gynecology practice that set out to be the 'One Medical for women's health.' Founded in 2021 by Tara Raffi and Carly Allen and backed by a $7M seed round out of Y Combinator's S22 batch, Almond blended in-person clinic visits with telehealth, 24/7 text access to clinicians, and membership pricing to cover the full arc of reproductive care - from birth control and annual exams to PCOS, fertility, group pregnancy care, and menopause.
Bloomi
Bloomi is a sexologist-led, direct-to-consumer intimate wellness brand offering clean, plant-based products - lubricants, arousal oils, intimate washes, moisturizers, and body-safe vibrators - designed for sensitive skin and free of common vulvar allergens. Founded by sexologist Rebecca Alvarez Story, the company pairs a proprietary 'Clean Standard' for ingredient transparency with shame-free sexual health education, and became the first Latina-founded brand to launch in the sexual wellness aisle nationwide at Target.
Dandi Fertility
Dandi Fertility is a New York-based femtech company that makes the physical and emotional grind of IVF a little less lonely. Its patent-pending IVF Care Kit - a heating pad, cooling pad, shot targets, a hands-free supply belt and a massage ball - is paired with a virtual care platform staffed by registered fertility nurses licensed across all 50 states. Founded in 2021 by fertility nurse Leyla Bilali and CEO Jake Kent, Dandi sells directly to patients and to fertility clinics, and its Care Kit was named one of TIME's 200 Best Inventions of 2024.
Lilu, Inc.
Lilu is a New York femtech company building smart technology for new mothers. Its flagship Massage Bra is a hands-free wearable that uses patented pneumatic compression to mimic hand massage during pumping, helping mothers express more milk in less time, while its MilkSense app tracks feeding, pumping, and milk stash with AI-driven, personalized lactation insights. Founded by MIT- and Penn-trained engineers Adriana Vazquez and Sujay Suresh Kumar, Lilu aims to make postpartum care more comfortable, efficient, and pain-free.
Mavida Health
Mavida Health is a Los Angeles digital health company delivering specialized virtual mental health care for women navigating reproductive milestones - pregnancy, postpartum, fertility, loss, and menopause. Founded in 2023 by reproductive psychiatrist Dr. Sarah Oreck and health-tech operator Emma Sugerman, it pairs one-on-one and group therapy, family counseling, and prescribing with community programming under the banner 'mental healthcare for every mama.' The company reached licensed clinical operations across California, New York, New Jersey, and Texas, and in June 2026 was acquired by insurer WPS Health Solutions to run as an independent subsidiary.
Playground
Playground is a female-founded sexual wellness brand making clean, vegan, water-based personal lubricants and intimacy products intentionally formulated for women. Its FDA-cleared, clinically tested formulas blend adaptogens like ashwagandha with skincare-grade ingredients such as hyaluronic acid, vitamin E and bamboo extract to support vaginal health while boosting libido. Co-founded with pop icon Christina Aguilera as Chief Brand Advisor, Playground raised $2M in seed funding and sells direct-to-consumer plus retail partners including Target.
Surgo Health
Surgo Health is a Washington, DC-based Public Benefit Corporation building healthcare's universal 'Why Engine' - an AI-powered platform that decodes the beliefs, biases, and barriers driving human health decisions. By combining behavioral science, data science, and machine learning, its products (BehavioralPulse, Mosaic, Derin, and EchoHER) help life sciences companies, payers, providers, and public-sector organizations understand the people behind the patients and design more effective, human-centered care.
The Pause Technologies Inc.
The Pause Technologies Inc. is a Phoenix-based, female-founded healthtech company building Harmoni, an AI companion for women navigating perimenopause, menopause, and beyond. Its app pairs a 24/7 AI wellness coach with symptom tracking, wearable data (Apple Health, Fitbit, Oura, Garmin), gamified journeys, and clinician-reviewed content to turn the confusing hormonal transition into something women can understand and act on. Founded by AI entrepreneur and MIT Sloan graduate Susan Sly with clinician Dr. Mia Chorney, the company is targeting the roughly 50 million U.S. women experiencing menopause symptoms.