A growing number of female-founded unicorns; Techtextil North America and Texprocess Americas events are back; The 2nd World Congress on Women’s Health + more
Biweekly newsletter about the latest news and updates on innovation and diversity in wearable tech, health tech, and femtech space.
Happy Tuesday everyone! 🙂
Last year was a blockbuster for private companies newly valued at $1 billion or above, and unicorn startups founded by women weren’t left out of the growth.
According to Crunchbase data, a total of 595 companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board last year, far exceeding the numbers in prior years. Of these, 83 were founded or co-founded by women, more than quadrupling that category’s count from 2020, when there were 18 new unicorn companies with at least one woman as a founder.
That pace seems to be keeping up into 2022. So far this year, 10 of the 100 or so new unicorns that have been minted have at least one female co-founder.
The proportion of new companies joining The Crunchbase Unicorn Board with at least one female founder in 2021 was 14 percent—matching 2019—the highest proportion since 2015. Of these new unicorns—which span agtech, health care, e-commerce, software and delivery, among other sectors—16 are led by female CEOs.
Let’s hope this is the trend that will continue in the years to come! 🚀
Thank you for tuning in this Tuesday, happy reading! Marija & Anja 💌
WoW webinars and virtual events 🌎 📆
HAPPENING THIS THURSDAY! 👇🏽
This week, we are continuing with our FemTech Untapped webinar series, and this month’s webinar is covering innovations in maternal and infant health and wellbeing.
Speakers include Sarah Dorsett, Chief Executive Officer of Nanit, Mia Funt, co-founder and President of ByHeart, Laura Clapper, Chief Medical Officer of FemTec Health and Laura Chambers, Chief Executive Officer of Willow Innovations.
600+ people have already booked their ticket! 🔥
🤝 Our webinar partner for this session is ByHeart - a next-generation baby nutrition company dedicated to transforming the feeding experience to do better for babies (and their parents).
Our program partners are FemTec Health - the leading health and beauty sciences company focused on using technology and data to transform the total healthcare experience for women in every stage of their life cycle, and Goodwin - a leading law firm with 1,600 lawyers across the United States, Europe, and Asia, exceling at complex transactions, high-stakes litigation, and world-class advisory services in the technology, life sciences, healthcare, private equity, real estate, and financial industries. 🙏🏽
HAPPENING NEXT WEEK! 👇🏽
WoW Members' Meet & Greet - Wearables, HealthTech, FemTech, IoT, Fashion, March 9, 10am - 11am / 6pm - 7pm BST
HAPPENING IN MAY! 👇🏽
AMA session with Marija Butkovic, founder and CEO of Women of Wearables (for WoW members only), May 5, 2022 (10am - 11am BST / 6pm - 7pm BST)
WoW community events, news, and updates 💻🌎📆
From fiber to finished textile, Techtextil North America and Texprocess Americas are known as the largest event for materials, equipment, technology, services, and more for the entire technical textiles, nonwovens, and sewn products textile supply chain. The two events will reunite the industry in Atlanta May 17 – 19, 2022. Due to the cancellation of the 2020 event due to COVID-19, this will be the first co-located edition since 2018.
Use promo code WOW22 when booking your ticket – this will provide you with 15% off of symposium purchases for either event!
📆 This year's Women's Health Innovation Forum Series on Gynecological & Sexual Health is happening on on Wednesday, April 27th, from 12-1pm ET / 9-10am PT. You can register here - https://www.womens.health/gynecological2022
📆 The next Barclays Business Health Pledge Industry panel takes a closer look at how the nurseries and childcare sector has fared these last couple of years and how it can recover. Register to join on 28 April ➡️ book ticket here!
📆 The 2nd World Congress on Women’s Health: Innovations and Inventions (WHII 2022): Addressing Unmet Needs will take place on July 11-12, 2022 in Tel Aviv, Israel. Please click here to view the preliminary program.
🎤 Check out Her Health podcast by Organon: Episode 2 w/ Dr. Alice Zheng, Principal of RH Capital.
💪🏽 Kinneir Dufort’s Ethnic Diversity Excellence Programme will offer three students from minority Ethnic and Heritage backgrounds an immersive, potentially life changing opportunity to learn and develop within an industry environment. Join KD’s webinar on Wednesday 20th April and learn all about the programme. This is the perfect opportunity to ask any questions and find out more about this funded internship.
💼 Seedrs’ marketing team is looking for a new Associate to join them in helping bring the campaigns we work with to life on the Seedrs platform. More info here.
🏆 Our member company Rosy has been nominated by The Webby Awards for best visual design! Help them win by voting via this link!
🏆 Our member OCON Healthcare has been recognized as a leading innovator in biotechnology and has received this year’s Global Health & Pharma Biotechnology Award 2022 for “Best Uterine Drug Delivery Solutions Provider - Middle East”. Congrats, OCON! 👏🏽
🔥 Our members Life Whisperer & Presagen are excited to announce market entry of 𝗟𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝗪𝗵𝗶𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗿 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀. Following from the success of Life Whisperer Viability, which assesses the likelihood that an embryo will led to a pregnancy during IVF, Life Whisperer Genetics uses cutting edge Computer Vision AI to assess embryos 𝗻𝗼𝗻-𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗮𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗹𝘆 whether they are likely to be genetically healthy. This represents the next step in establishing a suite of technologies to assist with IVF and fertility, with plans to expand beyond into the OBGYN space. Read more about it here!
🔥 Our members and partners Fermata have been featured by Washington Post, read more in the article here! 👏🏽
📈 Our member Tracy Wogman and her business Create Better Days CBD’s PMS & Period support capsules have successfully passed onto the next stage of the UK Novel Foods process for CBD food supplements and is listed on the updated FSA Novel Foods register list. This means that it is authorised to remain on the UK market. Congratulations, Tracy! 👏🏽
👭 ‘Women are not mini-men, let's stop treating them like such in the workplace’, great write-up by our WoW woman Terry Weber, check it out here!
💰 Evaluate the worth of your R&D claim with EmpowerRD’s easy 4-step calculator, get started here.
💼 Thrive Wearables is looking for Head of Marketing to join their team, please get in touch, or email recruitment@thrivewearables.com if you are interested, or share to those who might be!
➡️ The women’s health and wellness industry has expanded exponentially over the last few years and it is expected that by 2027 it will be a $65B industry. What's driving this growth? Goodwin London partner Sophie McGrath and associate Kesten Laverty discuss the major drivers in their Maddyness UK byline.
🥳 FemTech Lab's Spring Cohort 2022 Kicks Off, read more on our blog here!
📌 Robert S. Jacobson and Kate Nuehring Su, associates at Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP discuss key IP considerations for patenting 3D printed medical supplies and devices and how the COVID-19 pandemic could shape innovations over the next few years. Check the full article here.
🎤 We spoke to Kai Thornagel, Director of Essity Ventures, to find out more about their key focus areas for 2022 and what startups can expect from the partnership with Essity Ventures. Find out more on our blog.
🔥 Become a WoW member to learn from and connect with our community of entrepreneurs, designers, and technologists, leverage valuable resources, and discover career opportunities! All our members get free access to all our events and other resources, including ones in the FemTech Untapped program!
➡️ Follow us on Twitter / LinkedIn / Instagram / Facebook.
🧑🏫 Join our LinkedIn femtech group with 1,300+ members where we discuss all things women’s health, femtech innovation, and investment.
📆 Check out our events page.
📧 Get in touch if you’d like to become our partner and promote your company in this newsletter!
📌 If you are a female founder, designer, or technologist, we would love to feature you on our WoW women blog!
Thanks for reading this newsletter, next one will land in your inbox on Monday, 2 May. 📧
If you wish to send us feedback or have a question, email us, we would love to hear from you! 🥰