By Emma Carnus, Amrita Jain and Jack Fox-Male  Reading time: 10 minutes

Until the 1990s, the vast majority of medical research was done on men. 

Researchers claimed that women’s hormonal cycles made results too complex, while pregnancy risks made inclusion too risky. Even today, women’s health concerns receive only 5% of research and development attention. Entire generations of medicines and treatment guidelines, and even our understanding of symptoms, are based entirely on male physiology. 

But things might be looking up. 

Femtech is rapidly emerging within the deep tech landscape as a powerful driver to close the longstanding and systemic gap in women’s health. What’s more, at Hello Tomorrow we’ve seen a steady increase in the number of femtech-related applications to our Challenge – the world’s longest-running deep tech startup competition. 

So, we want to take a closer look. As a society, are we really making progress in women’s health? And if so, what are the most promising technologies, and what’s stopping them from scaling? 

We spoke with three leading femtech founders and a dedicated femtech investor to understand the challenges they face, and the opportunities the most cutting-edge technologies will bring. Hilla Shaviv (Gals Bio), Sânziana Foia (Papcup), Anna Luisa (Impli) and Alice Zheng (Foreground Capital).

An invisible research history

Hilla Shaviv founded Gals Bio in 2016 to open new horizons in the realm of women’s health and wellness.

Women spend 25% more of their lives in poor health compared to men. This leads to an estimated 75 million years of life lost annually due to preventable illness or early death.

Despite women traditionally making 33% more doctor visits than men, women’s health concerns receive only 5% of research and development attention. 

This imbalance impacts more than just individual wellbeing. It creates profound economic consequences: overall, improving women’s health could result in $400 billion in global economic gains by 2040.

As explained by Hilla Shaviv, CEO and founder of Gals Bio, “I hope people realise that making women more efficient and healthier will make the whole economy and the society more efficient”.

Why is femtech so hard to scale? 

Against the backdrop of this imbalance, the most innovative technologies in femtech bring it into the realm of deep tech. We all know that deep tech ventures are inherently high-risk, requiring significant capital and long development cycles. 

But what is it about femtech in particular that makes it so tricky to bring solutions to market? 

Lack of women’s health knowledge delays the scaling of disruptive femtech

Sânziana Foia is CEO and founder of Papcup, who won the Emerging Pioneer Track of the 2025 Hello Tomorrow Challenge. This track highlights exceptional early-stage startups that are still in the research and development phase (TRL 4 or lower) but already show strong scientific or business potential.

“There’s a fundamental lack of primary research on women’s bodies. There’s no funding at the research level, and no dedicated focus on gynaecology, meaning that we’re left to build the evidence base ourselves, from scratch,”
— Anna Luisa, CEO and co-founder of Impli.

Femtech ventures often have to fund and conduct foundational research themselves. From hormonal cycle fluctuations to gynaecological conditions, there is a distinct lack of foundational scientific research on women’s biology. 

This extends the development timeline and delays innovation at the earliest stages, before prototypes, pilots or even clinical trials can begin. Unfortunately, this increases the perceived risk and makes the opportunity less attractive to investors.

“In this sector, building the necessary clinical evidence base – often non-existent from historical data – takes time and resources, and it can be challenging to find investors who not only understand the long-term opportunity but are also aligned with the realities and timelines of medical device development.”
— Sânziana Foia, CEO and founder of Papcup, winner of the Emerging Pioneer Track of the 2025 Hello Tomorrow Challenge. 

Lack of historical exits and success stories puts off investors 

Another major hurdle is the lack of historical exits in femtech. This creates a vicious cycle: with no precedents to point to, many VCs hesitate to take early-stage risks, citing the long development cycles we mentioned above.

According to all three founders that we interviewed, the lack of successful case studies or unicorns in this space means that investors simply don’t understand either the scientific opportunity or the market potential. 

“VCs are still cautious because there’s not enough of a track record to de-risk their investment”
— Anna Luisa, CEO and co-founder of Impli. 

Deep tech can drive the change that women’s health urgently needs

Impli, led by CEO Anna Luisa, were the winner of the Digital Health & Medical Devices track in the 2025 Hello Tomorrow Challenge.

Despite the hurdles, a shift is coming. 

Over the past decade, femtech has transformed from a niche category primarily focused on period tracking apps, into a vibrant, multi-vertical industry that encompasses reproductive health, menopause, diagnostics, wellness, and more. This evolution is driven by a few things: rising consumer demand for personalised solutions; technological advancements, such as wearable devices for tracking health indicators and AI-driven diagnostics: and a broader cultural shift that is breaking taboos and increasing awareness around women’s specific health needs. 

And, within the deep tech ecosystem, the founders at the forefront of the field highlight untapped potential not just for clinical impact, but for economic and strategic disruption.  

“Very few medtech companies are truly focused on women’s health. But the opportunity is massive. The companies that step in now and lead the way will not only shape the future of healthcare, but they’ll also redefine the investment landscape,”
— Anna Luisa, CEO and co-founder of Impli. 

Let’s take a closer look at how the deep tech ecosystem is shaping this new generation of femtech. 

Rising momentum in investment into women’s health 

The economic opportunity in women’s health is immense.  

According to multiple market analyses, the global femtech market has risen from approximately USD 40 billion in 2024, to an expected USD 45–47 billion in 2025, demonstrating robust annual growth (CAGRs of roughly 16–21 percent).

And we’re due to see continued expansion over USD 230 billion by 2034, reflecting long-term investor appetite and rapid commercialisation of women’s health innovations.

According to a Women’s Health Access Matters (WHAM) report, investing $350M in research on women’s health could yield $14 billion in economic returns. Closing the 25% gap in health outcomes for women will add at least $1 trillion in annual global GDP by 2040. This investment could generate $3 in return for every $1 invested.

So, there is a growing realisation that investing in women’s health is not philanthropy – it is a high-return business opportunity. This is clear when we look at some of the recent acquisitions in femtech.

Specialist women’s health funds

Dr Alice Zheng (above) leads Foreground Capital, a dedicated women’s health fund (formerly RH Capital), along with Stasia Obremskey and Elizabeth Bailey.

Investors are also seeing that now is the time to act.

While generalist VC firms like Google Ventures, Speedinvest, and M Ventures have increasingly added femtech to their portfolio over the last 5-10 years, we’ve also seen the establishment of dedicated women’s health funds like Foreground Capital (formerly RH Capital). 

Under the leadership of Partners Alice Zheng, Stasia Obremskey, and Elizabeth Bailey, Foreground Capital has invested in 24 early-stage women’s health companies, across conditions exclusively affecting women, with one successful exit already. Their expanded focus now includes areas that affect women differently, such as cardiovascular health, and disproportionately, such as autoimmune disorders.

And some of the leading femtech companies are raising increasingly large rounds:

Recent funding rounds in femtech.

Clearly, these companies, as well as Foreground Capital, sense the growing awareness of unmet needs and significant commercial opportunities. Alice emphasises that framing women’s health as a business opportunity rather than philanthropy is essential for drawing mainstream capital into the sector. 

The opportunity

Despite limited later-stage funding and relatively few exits, femtech presents first-in-class opportunities with strong potential returns. 

At Hello Tomorrow Consulting, we help corporates seize these opportunities by identifying and connecting them with the most promising startups in health, from our global network spanning 100+ countries, 3200 healthcare-related startups, 1300+ investors, 5000+ corporates, and 100+ innovation agencies. 

Collaborating with us in this way gives corporates early access to breakthrough innovations and a competitive edge in a fast-growing market. We also go further, helping them deep-dive into specific trends and technologies to better assess their potential market opportunities and strategic value for our clients. 

We enable our clients to stay ahead of the curve in femtech innovation, helping them anticipate where they can shape the future of women’s health. 

Femtech trends from the Hello Tomorrow Challenge 

The Hello Tomorrow Challenge is the longest-running deep tech startup competition in the world. Since 2014, Hello Tomorrow Consulting and Deepbright Ventures have analysed over 20,000 deep tech startups and selected 4,500+ of the most promising ventures through the Challenge, which have collectively raised over €25 billion in funding. 

Applications from women’s health startups have increased year over year, seeing a 71% increase between 2023 and 2024. These innovations have moved beyond simple tracking apps, to more complex medical and biological challenges powered by deep tech. 

Here are the biggest trends we’ve seen: 

– AI-driven personalisation
Growth of precision health tools leveraging AI and biomarkers for individualised cycle tracking, fertility prediction, and hormone management. 

– Pelvic floor and sexual health
Startups are bringing connected devices, digital therapeutics, and clinical-grade solutions for pelvic disorders and sexual wellness into mainstream OB-GYN and postpartum care. 

– Mental health reimagined for women
New platforms address historically overlooked conditions such as postpartum depression, perinatal anxiety, and menopause-related mood disorders, integrating hormonal tracking with tailored cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and digital therapies. 

– Postpartum care as a category
The focus is shifting from short-term maternity support to long-term maternal wellness, with innovations in recovery monitoring, lactation support, and maternal mental health. 

– Menopause and midlife health
Strong momentum in digital platforms and wearables targeting vasomotor symptoms, sleep disruption, and cognitive changes, increasingly integrated into workplace health programs. 

– Fertility and ovarian health innovation
Advances include assisted reproduction lab automation, predictive AI for in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) success, non-hormonal contraceptives, and full-stack family-building platforms. There is an emerging focus too on ovarian aging with biomarker testing, longevity interventions, and fertility preservation. 

The time is now

Femtech is no longer just menstruation and fertility apps. It is a comprehensive, tech-powered ecosystem backed by growing investor confidence and rapid innovation. And with trillion-dollar implications.  

For healthcare and medtech corporates, now is the time to understand the trends that are shaping the sector, and position themselves to seize the first-in-class opportunities with strong potential returns. 

Hello Tomorrow Consulting partners with corporations to turn deep tech into real business opportunities, supporting with new market entry, foresight and trends analysis, startup sourcing and due diligence, corporate venturing support, and more. 

Interested in working with us? Get in touch. 

Or, if you’re a founder of a deep tech or femtech startup, reach out to Deep Bright Ventures!