In 2020 whilst the global pandemic disrupted most people’s lives, FemTech Lab Founders Katia and Karina took a moment to re-evaluate.
Katia who has always wanted to build an accelerator, and Karina who had become fascinated by the new emerging trends around female empowerment and female healthcare, joined forces to develop Europe’s first FemTech-focused Accelerator.
“FemTech Lab was formally born at the end of summer 2020 and received overwhelming support from day one”, say the two founders. “We started by building out a network of superstar advisors that would be valuable for early-stage FemTechs and are extremely grateful to the group of phenomenal FemTech champions we assembled. (You can see them all on our website!)”
“Women’s health has a lot of untapped potentials. We have been inspired by some of the applications we received and the founders we have met so far.”
The partners say that they have noticed a few challenges that Startups tend to be facing:
UX & Product
Many FemTech founders are passionate about the problem they are solving because they experienced it first hand. However, first-hand founder experience is not always representative of the entire market. This is why it’s important to bring together the entire ecosystem, including practicing clinicians and healthcare professionals, to help FemTech founders make the best product and user experience decisions.
Fundraising
Fundraising is challenging for early-stage founders, which isn’t unusual for a young and maturing sector. A lot of the companies are single-product companies focusing on female reproductive health only. Even though it is a sizable market in itself, it can be a challenging sell to a lot of VCs who want to see scalability.
Women’s health has been a “mystery” for everyone, but that is changing with new research and the wave of female empowerment breaking taboos. This means that the male-dominated VC industry is waking up as more entrepreneurs are joining the sector and building new solutions.
Go-to-Market and International Scalability
For FemTechs entering the market via B2B channels adoption and cross-market entry can be a challenge. Healthcare systems differ significantly per country. For example, a lot of the European startups we speak with are eyeing the US market. However, navigating that market can be a real challenge. This is exactly why we have a US market module in our program where startups can work with our US-based advisors and partners, while for international companies we offer workshops on entering the NHS here in the UK.
FemTech Lab’s Spring Cohort is now officially closed. You can stay up-to-date with the latest information at: https://femtechlab.com/.
