Women’s health is still bringing in VC dollars despite an overall funding downturn

Women’s health startups are still closing multimillion-dollar funding deals despite a challenging venture capital (VC) landscape in which VC dollars are on track to fall by 73% this year compared to last.

In the last couple of months, virtual maternity care program Pomelo Care raised $33 million in seed and Series A rounds led by Andreessen Horowitz; Caraway Health, a digital mental, physical, and reproductive health services platform, raised almost $17 million in a Series A round led by Maveron and GV (formerly Google Ventures); and Intrinsic, which acquires brands that make women’s health products, announced a $15 million equity fundraise (which is when a company raises money by selling its shares).

Christie Pitts, co-founder of VCs for Repro, a coalition dedicated to supporting reproductive rights, told Healthcare Brew she thinks there are several factors contributing to why women’s health startups are still able to raise money despite the unfavorable VC environment.

For one, there’s the legislative landscape post-Roe.

“With the Dobbs decision, there’s more gravity around women’s health than there has been in the past,” Pitts said.

Also, more people have been outspoken about their experiences with women’s health in recent years. Pitts mentioned Serena Williams opening up about her near-fatal birthing experience and Beyoncé discussing racial inequities in maternal healthcare in her Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé Netflix documentary.

“There are celebrities who are leading the way and helping to reshape and shift the conversation about what it means to become pregnant and to become a mom,” Pitts said.

Right now, women’s health is “conservatively valued at a trillion dollars in market opportunity,” she added.

“The reality is that the market has been overlooked or undervalued for some time, and companies have been building. Now, institutional investors are meeting them in order to put them to scale,” Pitts said.