A male-founded startup became Europe’s first femtech unicorn. Does it matter?
Yesterday morning, Sifted reporter Kai Nicol-Schwarz published what turned out to be a very buzzy story: UK-based period tracking app Flo Health raised $200m — pushing its valuation beyond $1bn and making it Europe’s first femtech unicorn.
What our article didn’t emphasise was that Flo is also Europe’s first women’s health unicorn with an all-male founding team — a detail which sparked a backlash online.
“A company founded by men, led by men and funded by men became the first WOMEN'S health app to achieve unicorn status. If this doesn't show you everything that's wrong with the ecosystem, I don't know what will,” Anna-Sophie Hartvigsen, cofounder of investment learning app and community for women Female Invest, wrote in a viral LinkedIn post, citing stats on the lack of funding for female founders. “I’m not saying it’s bad that a femtech company is doing well,” she later added in the comments. “I’m saying it’s bad that only men are able to succeed in this space.”
Some founders in the comments underneath Hartvigsen's post said that they’ve struggled with fundraising as a woman; there was also a debate in a private WhatsApp group seen by Sifted about whether female founders should add a token male founder to their team in an effort to increase their chances of getting cheques. Someone in that group added that we won’t fix the trend of men funding men until there are more female investors.
But others didn’t see it that way.
“This achievement should actually be celebrated. As a women's health investor that has invested in 7+ women's health companies, we are yet to see any of them scale,” Deepali Nangia, a partner at Speedinvest, wrote in response to Hartvigsen’s LinkedIn post. “Flo's achievement is a very strong signal to the market that [direct to consumer] women's health is monetizable in Europe and that there is money to be made here; this is what investors need to see so more money flows into women's health companies. Not to say that the challenges faced by women in pitching are any less, but we must celebrate all wins that lead to more capital deployed into this sector,” she argued.
Nangia added that she wasn’t doubting there’s a problem, “but every win should not be turned around to a problem… Many people have been working on solving for this problem, which includes many women of course but also men.”
Another commenter added: “If anything, let this be a door for more investors to look closely at the female health industry and invest their money there? Could this be an example of men allies? If it had to be a company founded and led by men, well thank you very much for opening the door, now let the rest go through.”
Priya Oberoi, partner at women’s health-focused VC Goddess Gaia Ventures, added: “Flo reaching series C [unicorn] status with 60 mln active users is a win for #womenshealth - helping to close that 131 year gender health gap and getting products and services out there to improve the lives of women.”
"We firmly believe that women's health has been critically overlooked, undervalued and underfunded for far too long," Flo said in a statement to Sifted. "Our sincere hope is that Flo’s funding will inspire more investors to recognise the immense potential in this space." The company added: "We're proud to say that more than half (56%) of Flo's employees are women, including our leadership team."
It’s an important debate, and, readers, I’m curious to hear your thoughts: why aren’t there more female-founded femtech unicorns? Is it a problem that the first European femtech unicorn is founded by men, if the product helps women? Does it open doors for female founders in the space, or actually keep them shut? Get in touch with me or Kai.
— Anne Sraders, senior reporter
