Meet the Entrepreneurs Innovating in the Women’s Health Moonshot
We’ve compiled a list of the startups in our portfolio that are tackling women’s health concerns.
Investors, get a first look at how you can back health moonshots using StartUp Health’s new rolling impact fund, in collaboration with AngelList.
For 2021, we’re excited to introduce Moonshot Programming in which we highlight leading Health Transformers focused on our 12 Health Moonshots. This month, we’re showcasing the Health Transformers who are building radical solutions that widen the aperture on the definition of women’s health and focus on issues that move beyond the current litmus test — sexual and reproductive health — to a standard of living well.
When it comes to receiving adequate healthcare, men have long held a priority over women. According to the World Health Organization, some of the socio-cultural factors that prevent women from receiving quality health services and attaining the best possible level of health include unequal power relationships between men and women, social norms that decrease education and paid employment opportunities, and more.
At StartUp Health, we strongly believe that being a woman shouldn’t be a health risk factor. That’s why we’ve devoted an entire health moonshot to improving the health of every woman all around the globe, no matter the barrier. Achieving the women’s health moonshot means widening the aperture on the definition of women’s health, focusing on issues that move beyond the current litmus test — sexual and reproductive health — to a standard of living well. This includes a woman’s right to physical and mental health and wellbeing.
Below we’ve compiled a list of the innovative entrepreneurs in our portfolio who are making women’s health a priority and revolutionizing the space with new solutions. We’ve also provided their contact information if you’re interested in connecting with the team.
Get to know the StartUp Health companies that are innovating in the Women’s Health Moonshot:
BabyMed Africa
Co-founders Bryan Okello and Kenneth Ruttoh of BabyMed Africa are on a mission to save the lives of the 6,000+ pregnant women, guardians of young children, and women of child-bearing age who die yearly in Kenya due to preventable pregnancy or childbirth problems. They’ve developed an integrated mobile health platform that informs, educates, and drives action via SMS and audio messages to pregnant women and mothers of newborn babies, as well as to supporters.
Connect with the team at BabyMed Africa.
Babyscripts
Co-founders Anish Sebastian and Juan Pablo Segura are rethinking the delivery of maternity care through the power of technology. The duo has created a comprehensive and clinically validated maternity program to help manage expecting moms virtually, before and after birth. Their three-tiered approach to virtual maternity care allows providers to deliver risk-specific care to pregnant mothers at any time, in any place, through a mobile app and internet-connected monitoring devices. Women receive daily customizable content through one year postpartum and virtual management of blood pressure, weight, mental health, and more through remote monitoring.
Gabbi
90% of women don’t know what their personal risk is for breast cancer, and existing risk models today are only used in a clinical setting, most often with imaging centers and OBGYNs, with a varying degree of compliance. For payors looking to reduce costs around delayed diagnoses in breast cancer, CEO & Founder Kaitlin Christine created Gabbi — a startup that provides women a risk assessment platform to evaluate and understand their risk profile, determine the necessary action plan, and mobilize a community of women undergoing the same journey.
Gennev
Only 7% of women in menopause receive treatment for the symptoms they’re experiencing due to conflicting views on hormone therapy, lack of physician education, and a shortage of OBGYNs. Gennev is empowering women to take control of their health in the second half of life…starting with menopause. CEO & Co-founder Jill Angelo has created the first-ever digital health platform for women in menopause that offers free education and community, over-the-counter products, and virtual access to OBGYNs and dietitians experienced in menopause.
K’ept Health
According to CEO & Founder Sheena Franklin and the team at K’ept Health, most traditional dermatologists are bound by insurance and despite their very best intentions, can’t give the type of personal, in-depth skincare that women of color require on a regular basis. K’ept Health puts the patient in control of their health with a digital clinic designed around their needs — skin of color expertise, medical care, regular advice, and at-home support with affordable and transparent pricing.
Lactation Lab
CEO & Founder Dr. Stephanie Canale is on a mission to optimize infant nutrition and maternal health. She created Lactation Lab, one of the first companies to offer a complete breast milk analysis and provide detailed explanations and actionable insights to make your breastfeeding journey as empowering as possible. Lactation Lab provides testing kits that analyze breast milk to show exactly what nutrition their infant is getting, allowing mothers to recognize and replenish deficient nutrients.
Oratel Diagnostics
For pharmaceutical companies who need a low-cost, easy-to-use, non-invasive diagnostic for endometriosis, CEO & Founder Dorothee Goldman of Oratel Diagnostics offers a saliva-based diagnostic technology, ENDO-TEK, that can identify endometriosis with 90% accuracy. The process consists of a swab impregnated with proprietary pigments that give color responses that correlate with the presence or absence of endometriosis. Oratel’s mobile application reads the color response and transmits the color as digital data to a server, which also serves as a real-time database for endometriosis.
Pregistry
CEO & Founder Dr. Diego Wyszynski and the team at Pregistry are on a mission to empower women and healthcare providers with the information they need to have healthy pregnancies and healthy babies. Pregistry’s platform offers a variety of tools, including a team of experts, communities, pregnancy resources, inspiring stories, and COVID-19 information for parents and parents-to-be.
Privy
CEO Evi Heilbrunn and the team at Privy are on a mission to bring the “care” back into women’s healthcare. For the 22 million women who struggle with bladder leaks in the United States, Privy has developed Finess, the first FDA-cleared product to stop bladder leaks before they start. With a soft foam body and gentle hypoallergenic adhesive, Finess is placed over the urethral opening, preventing urine from escaping when a woman exercises, coughs, or sneezes. Each single-use soft patch is easy to place and remove without any discomfort or residue and uses 95% less landfill space than pads.
Renalis
CEO & Founder Missy Lavender and her team at Renalis are on a mission to improve the pelvic health of all persons and expand access to innovative treatments. Renalis has built a machine-based learning SaaS platform called CeCe that provides patients with direct treatment for overactive bladder as its first product. The platform delivers behavioral therapy, guided exercises, condition-specific education, and lifestyle modification. It also gathers patient-reported data and uses its proprietary algorithms to customize the patient journey. CeCe will allow patients to receive first-line pelvic healthcare in the comfort of their own homes.
Robyn
Specialized care such as lactation, doula, and maternal mental health can improve maternal outcomes and save payers billions but the market is fragmented. That’s why CEO Allison Kasirer founded Robyn — a platform that supports expecting and new parents on their path to parenthood while improving maternal outcomes and reducing overhead for payors and providers. Choose from numerous services — acupuncture, birth education, doula, nutrition, and more — find a specialist, and book a consultation.
TruDiary
TruDiary is a prenatal risk assessment and monitoring platform, designed to detect early high-risk warning indicators in the first trimester, allowing for timely interventions and less negative birth outcomes. CEO & Founder Veronica Berry and her team use AI technology to identify the probability of risk for pregnancy complications, helping prevent acute health events and reducing the total cost of care specific to maternal-fetal medicine.
Investors: Learn how you can invest in Health Moonshots through StartUp Health’s new rolling impact fund.
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