Women — The final frontier
I. Science fiction or reality?
Throughout history, women’s health has taken a backseat to men’s. This is to a large extent still very much the case today.
It sounds completely outdated to hear this now, but did you know that it wasn’t until 1993 that the FDA started allowing all women to participate in drug-testing studies?
And since then, research has shown that medical institutions still use mostly male participants to avoid controlling for complications such as women’s menstrual cycles.
Partly as a result of the lack of research (and interest to perform research) on women’s bodies, very little funding goes toward discovering and marketing treatments specifically for women.
This gap even starts already at the level of mouse genetics. Researchers and academics mostly use male mice in their work, as females are often deemed “too complex” due to their estrous cycle. This gender bias most likely has a detrimental effect on the quality of health care that women receive. Having different physiologies, women are not only underserved, but they are systematically badly served.
This article in Wired on why women’s pain is different from men’s and why drugs could also be, strongly confirms the archaic state of female health research.
II. The tip of the iceberg
From the ashes of the #MeToo movement, addressing sexual harassment & violence toward women and promoting equity in the workplace, venture capital investors are taking notice of Femtech, an industry made up of technologies and products geared toward women’s health.
Last year, nearly $400 million worth of venture capital was invested in the global femtech industry, up 4x in the past 5 years.
The largely male-dominated VC industry is waking up to the fact that women aren’t such a “niche market” as we’ve heard for so many years. 365 VC investors have participated in deals in the space in the last decade and the number is growing fast.
And to be fair, it would be completely insane for investors to miss out on Femtech:
- Market size: Women make up just about 50% of the global population and they tend to be the main consumers of healthcare technologies and products, especially when it comes to decision-making.
- Multi-consumers: 90% of women are the primary healthcare decision makers for their family.
- Purchasing power: Working-age women spend nearly 30% more per capita on healthcare companies compared to men in the same age group and women are 75% more likely to use digital tools for healthcare than men. Projections of total global earnings for women to jump from $18 trillion in 2014 to $24 trillion in 2020, or about a third of the world’s wealth. (Source: Frost & Sullivan)
- “Blue-ocean”: Women have for too long been underserved and badly served for a wide range of products and services making them an eldorado for ambitious entrepreneurs and investors wanting to enter a nascent but fast-growing industry.
What you’re currently seeing today in femtech is just the tip of the iceberg. VC funding for Femtech is likely to continue going up as more and more companies focus on modern health tools for women.
Women are finally in the spotlight, this time around, however, not for their looks or as a by-product of male-dominated research. Women embrace products designed with them in mind, empowering them to better understand themselves and receive actionable insights to reach their best selves.
III. Introducing WILD.AI — the knowledge engine for women
Born out of Entrepreneur First, the best global deep technology accelerator, WILD.AI has assembled a world-class team with one laser-focused mission: empower women to reach their personal best.
Founded by Helene Guillaume, a former Hedge Fund quant and Management Consultant, our vision is nothing less than to become the Bloomberg of female data. Helene, a keen triathlete and ultra-marathoner, has always been frustrated by the lack of personalized medical and training research for women and has had to train with men, like a man.
While one could think that men are stronger and that training or taking care of your health like them can only be beneficial, this couldn’t be further from the truth and can be dangerous.
In reality, women are very different from men: their physiology and metabolism, reaction to pain, joint laxity, the way they digest, absorb nutrients, variations of heart rate at all times, are all different.
On winter 2018, Jasmin Parris crossed the finish line first in the 268-mile Montane Spine Race, beating the first man by 15 hours. Courtney Dauwalter beat 10 hours on the first man in the 238-mile long Moab 240 in 2017. The same year, Sarah Thomas swam more than 100 miles in Lake Champlain — beating the male endurance swim record by almost 40 miles. Lael Wilcox finished top of the field at the 2016 Trans Am bike race, concluding the 4,400-mile race with a sprint finish.
We still know very little about women, and what “powerful” means. Additionally, when it comes to getting personalized physical and mental coaching, which isn’t affordable by most, women solely represent a shy 10% of all sports coaches and close to no research has been performed on female athletes.
These frustrations became the seeds for WILD.AI and main drivers to address an unmet need in women’s health. Using innovative data analysis and artificial intelligence, WILD.AI offers women insights into their physiology that are unprecedented in both breadth and depth.
WILD.AI aims to address many of these shortfalls — initially with active women. They have a high degree of body awareness and are very motivated to actively participate in research to optimize their performance and overall health, they are an excellent starting point to tackle the larger issue; the advancement of research for women’s health.
There are clear gender differences that influence a wide array of biological responses.
Our aim is to establish research collaborations with universities, pushing tech as a research and data collection tool, as they are creating new sets of data, with highly engaged users who are willing to participate in research to empower women.
WILD.AI leverages machine learning to identify and provide specific recommendations, to construct individual plans that adapt daily, improving cycle after cycle. A product and ecosystem for women that understand women.
Helping women find purpose and not waste their potential is what inspires us. Personal growth is what helps humans feel fulfilled, achieve more, be more ambitious and successful in personal endeavors and, more importantly, become who they were destined to be.
Think of WILD.AI as your smart central repository that knows you inside out, coaching you to reach the ultimate you, milestone after milestone.
We are pioneering the knowledge engine for women.
Women aren’t a smaller version of men. They’re strong, endurant, focused, ambitious. With the emergence of female role models in all industries, women are starting to have more to aspire to and aren’t afraid to embrace personal growth in all aspects of life.
Times are changing fast.
