Male-founded femtech agency Flo Well being has known as on buyers to recognise the “huge potential” within the femtech area, following a viral debate about its unicorn standing.
Flo introduced in July 2024 that it had raised greater than $200 million (£155.7m) in Collection C funding from Normal Atlantic, taking its valuation past $1 billion (£783.1m).
The funding makes Flo, which was cofounded in 2015 by brothers Dmitry Gurski and Yuri Gurski, the primary shopper ladies’s well being app to realize unicorn standing.
Nonetheless, a viral LinkedIn put up by Anna-Sophie Hartvigsen, cofounder of Feminine Make investments, stated that Flo was “based by males, led by males and funded by males” and confirmed “every little thing that’s unsuitable with the ecosystem”.
“Elevating cash as a feminine founder is near unattainable, with simply 2% of funding going to ladies,” Hartvigsen added.
In response to the feedback, a spokesperson for Flo Well being stated: “We firmly imagine that girls’s well being has been critically neglected, undervalued, and underfunded for much too lengthy.
“That is evidenced by the truth that in 2023, lower than 25% of all offers went to female-founded firms [in the US], and as of right now, femtech firms obtain solely 3% of digital well being funding.
“Our honest hope is that Flo’s most up-to-date funding will encourage extra buyers to recognise the immense potential on this area”.
They added that Flo has 56% feminine staff, together with its chief medical officer, Dr Anna Klepchukova.
Responding to the controversy, feminine founders informed Digital Well being Information about their considerations with enterprise capital funding.
Dr Rachael Grimaldi, chief government at CardMedic, stated: “Flo’s progress story is one to rejoice because it represents extra money being pushed into ladies’s well being – an space we all know has traditionally been underfunded, under-researched, and under-served from fertility to most cancers.
“As a feminine co-founder and CEO of a scaling firm, I’m witness to the inequity within the system and acquainted with the proof that demonstrates ladies have a more durable job securing funding than our male friends.
“That is grossly unfair and I’m grateful for the buyers, and stakeholders which can be shining a highlight on the problems of inequity, bias and sexism that exists”.
Rachel Murphy, founding father of enterprise consultancy The Grafter and advisor to well being tech communications company Silver Buck, stated it’s “legal” that women-founded start-ups obtain 2% of enterprise capital funding.
“Girls are founders and might do equally, or has analysis has proven, a greater job than male counterparts.
“In some areas, women-owned firms have supplied double the typical return on funding than these owned by males.
“On account of the dearth of funding flowing to women-owned firms, extra feminine founders are bootstrapped, and this has a knock-on impact with regards to ladies believing they’re ready to construct and make their begin up successful within the first place,” Murphy stated.
She added: “We have to encourage women from a a lot youthful age that they’ll go and do that, however we additionally should have a automobile and system to make it a actuality”.
