Q&A: How financial uncertainty might have an effect on femtech

Femtech has grown over the past decade, however investments in female-focused firms pale compared to the bigger digital well being sector. 

Ida Tin, cofounder and chairwoman at Clue, a Berlin-based menstrual well being app, coined the time period femtech in 2016 and joined MobiHealthNews to debate funding and development within the sector. 

MobiHealthNews: How do you assume the collapse of Silicon Valley Financial institution will have an effect on femtech?

Ida Tin: I feel there’s something kind of common to be stated about innovation and particularly firms which can be possibly increased threat which have discovered investments and possibly actually hard-earned funding cash. And I’d say I feel it is somewhat bit like in conflict zones and catastrophe areas, like ladies are all the time hit first and hardest. And I form of concern that it could possibly be comparable right here as a result of it is arduous to lift cash for femtech. I feel it is honest to say. And the form of extra specialised funds which have emerged over the past years, they’re like peanuts-sized funds, sadly.

And I feel simply usually, when all people will get extra nervous, we are inclined to do extra of the identified and something that’s within the areas of one thing that would culturally be tougher or really feel extra new or unknown, then issues simply get tighter.  However I’ll say, there’s additionally a robust form of counter-current occurring proper now, the place femtech and feminine well being and well being usually actually does have a number of curiosity and help. And I feel that will probably be just like the strongest present. There is no method that girls are going to cease wanting to construct merchandise that remedy actual issues for them and for one another. So I am not afraid that femtech will kind of undergo an enormous blow.

MHN: What is going on on with Clue, and the way is it progressing?

Tin: We simply really rebuilt our complete codebase and relaunched the app. This was as a result of now we have a number of legacy code, and we needed to have the ability to construct issues a lot quicker. And that was not one thing that I feel customers will discover all that a lot. The app seems somewhat bit totally different, however from kind of behind the scenes, that was an enormous success.  

Now we have a being pregnant characteristic now, now we have a allow you to get pregnant characteristic, and after you’ve got given beginning. So serving to undergo the life phases extra seamlessly.  Now we have additionally been hit by the monetary “meh.” We had a giant kind of enterprise deal, enterprise debt financing that fell by way of due to macro financial issues. So we needed to let folks go, which is so unhappy as a result of we had constructed a tremendous group the final 12 months. In order that was simply dangerous luck. Clue is doing nice, however exterior elements hit us like all people else.

MHN: How do you see femtech progressing sooner or later to profit ladies’s well being?

Tin: There’s nonetheless a discovery problem. I feel, really, there are various new merchandise that most individuals will most likely not have heard about. And I feel that is an indication of a really younger class nonetheless. 

There’s additionally a number of fragmentation on a knowledge stage. We do not nonetheless have a spot or a method to actually leverage all the info that we’re creating. And I feel that is one thing that I hope will come quickly, in order that it is extra handy for customers to actually get extra full footage of their well being and higher navigate this tradition. 

I feel there’s nonetheless room for kind of deeper tech, extra superior algorithms or residence diagnostics, […] higher kinds of contraception, or issues that form of take extra innovation, more cash to get to market. They’re on the best way, however there’s nonetheless some kind of a leap that we are able to do technologically, I feel.

Emily Kwan will provide extra element at her HIMSS23 session “Implementing an AI NLP Software to Handle SDOH Wants.” It’s scheduled for Tuesday, April 18, at 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. CT on the South Constructing, Stage 1, S105 C.