Anything BUT niche — Learnings from three female health start-ups to boost your business .
Previously considered “too niche or risky by the venture capital community” ˡ, female health startups have experienced a surge in investments. Bloomberg estimate that women-focused digital health startups rose 105% last year (2020–21) to $418 million ², spread across 22 companies. This has doubled from the previous year with a global market value at $32Bn², yet the global female health market still only makes up 3% of the overall funding in healthcare globally. ˡ
At Bloom, we believe this will drastically change, as we observe a significant increase of attention and awareness in female health topics, developing hand in hand with further advancements in technology. This enables tailored support for women across a variety of life stages: from periods to sexual wellness to fertility to menopause — Something which previously was challenging to scale or even design.
As we have been watching this market develop over the last years, we wanted to showcase three female health startups; 1) We introduce the business, 2) their unique selling point (USP), 3) what we can learn from their story so far and 4) where growth opportunities lie. We conclude with key recommendations for them, but also other players either in the space or wishing to enter the female health market.
Let’s get started!
Recently featured on the UK’s TV program “Dragon’s Den” (The UK’s Shark Tank equivalent), the startup WILD.AI offers an AI-powered app, which supports women in achieving their fitness goals — But it is a little more complex than that!
USP: Unique to their offering is their integrated AI-Coach, which alongside user input, also aggregates data across the users’ fitness and health apps, to tailor a training and nutrition plan to the individual user. This includes data on the user’s menstrual cycle, birth control, as well as women who are pre- and post-menopause. This helps women at different life stages truly understand their body and reach peak performance with personalized training plans (incl. nutrition), according to their unique physiology. This is different to any other fitness app currently on the market, leveraging already existing data and technology to enable a truly tailored fitness journey for every woman.
Learnings: WILD.AI is currently at the starting lines of their journey; Series A and still early stages of developing the App. It will be crucial for them to overcome the current barriers in data regulations and restrictions, expanding their strategic partnerships with other companies, whilst also advancing and optimizing their AI technology.
Growth opportunities: Currently the service focuses on those women who are at period or menopause stage, yet the opportunity to extend the offering to women at other life stages e.g. fertility, pregnancy, cancer care, etc. is significant. It certainly won’t be boring for the WILD.AI team and we are excited to follow their journey.
The next startup is Flo, with 100 million users worldwide they have overtaken their European competitor Clue and raised a total of $25.5M funding³. Flo is an AI-based period and ovulation tracker, which supports women at every stage of their reproductive cycle; tracking menstruation and predicting cycles, preparation for conception, pregnancy, early motherhood, and menopause.
USP: Heralded by users as offering more accurate predictions and thorough reports than current competitors⁵, Flo gained market lead. With community sharing features, this has enabled a safe space for women to ask questions and share concerns with the Flo community.
Learnings: Flo is a good example of how superior usability and technology can win market share, however their story also reminds us that it is always changing and never secure. A recent data breach — where it was discovered that Flo shared personal user data with Google and Facebook — saw many users leave the application ⁴. In addition, Flo changed their membership models with many features now requiring a monthly subscription. Despite the app being at a cost of one coffee a month, it has not quite managed to convert everyone to pay and with the data breach, this could impact Flo’s future success.
Growth opportunities: It will be crucial for Flo to re-gain trust with their community, explore new business models to increase conversion e.g. licensing their technology to established players or exploring the option of bundle memberships with other applications. Like WILD.AI, they also have huge potential to expand the audience into more niche groups like cancer care — But first they need to win back consumer trust and loyalty!
Our final startup is Binto — founded in 2016, this U.S. company is a subscription-based business, which sends customers monthly personalized packets of supplements, which include a combination of vitamins and supplements.
USP: There are many players within the supplements market (Cuure, Care/Of, Nurish — to name a few), but what makes Binto unique is that their offering focuses purely on female health; designed to help women with their nutritional needs across a variety of life stages — from period to menopause. Binto manages to combine current key trends in the industry; personalized nutrition, D2C and female health, into a unique offering.
Learnings: It is no surprise that already competitors are starting moving into the female health space, so it will be crucial for Binto to develop a more sophisticated business offering and secure their positioning with the market, to remain relevant with consumers.
Growth opportunities: Taking inspiration from WILD.AI and Flo, Binto can differentiate themselves through the technology they use. By integrating AI they could more accurately tailor supplement suggestions to the consumers unique physiology. In addition, like WILD.AI and Flo, they should expand their offering to women at other life stages to widen their audience and offering; perhaps even integrating their services with other femtech solutions — Binto need to act fast in order to stay relevant!
Our recommendations
All three startups provide a variety of offerings for women globally, all with a different purpose and cause; From WILD.AI offering tailored fitness and nutritional coaching, to Flo providing cycle predictions and community to Binto bringing supplements and vitamins straight to the customer’s door.
To leverage the opportunities at-hand — for these three start ups, other female health organisations, but also for players considering a move into this space e.g. FMCG or pharmaceutical — we have three key recommendations to keep in mind:
- Keep the customer at the centre of your design. This may seem obvious, but often gets forgotten. Take time as a team to truly understand your customers; through mapping customer journeys, living the day of a customer, meeting with customers, etc. As we have seen with Flo and Clue, this can be the crucial differentiator to get you to market lead.
- Leverage latest technologies — especially AI. We believe this is the biggest opportunity to bring truly tailored, personalised services and product offerings for women to the market. WILD.AI and Flo are good examples of companies already doing this — and we believe that without it, it will become challenging to compete, as it becomes the benchmark.
- Secure strategic partnerships with other players. WILD.AI is a great example of an early-stage start up leading the way in integration with other companies. This does not only offer customers more “bang for their buck” and convenience, but strengthens company USP, positioning within the market and offers new sources for data and insights — essential for both points 1 & 2.
At Bloom we are excited about the changing space of female health and the plethora of untapped opportunities. We herald those already providing meaningful products and services to women and look forward to seeing many more enter the space over the next year.
Bloom Partners is a German digital growth firm, supporting clients in innovation, strategy and building ventures. If you are interested in exploring the opportunities within female health further, we would love to speak to you.
Our sources
³https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/owhealth/company_financials
⁴https://www.thelily.com/more-than-100-million-women-use-flo-a-period-tracking-app-heres-why-some-are-deleting-it/?
⁵https://thismonth.co.uk/which-is-the-best-cycle-tracking-app-clue-vs-flo#:~:text=As%20much%20as%20I%20prefer,more%20options%20to%20choose%20from
