Flo Health responds to viral male-founded femtech funding debate

Male-founded femtech firm Flo Health has called on investors to recognise the “vast potential” in the femtech space, following a viral debate about its unicorn status.

Flo announced in July 2024 that it had raised more than $200 million (£155.7m) in Series C investment from General Atlantic, taking its valuation beyond $1 billion (£783.1m).

The investment makes Flo, which was cofounded in 2015 by brothers Dmitry Gurski and Yuri Gurski, the first consumer women’s health app to achieve unicorn status.

However, a viral LinkedIn post by Anna-Sophie Hartvigsen, cofounder of Female Invest, said that Flo was “founded by men, led by men and funded by men” and showed “everything that’s wrong with the ecosystem”.

“Raising money as a female founder is close to impossible, with just 2% of funding going to women,” Hartvigsen added.

In response to the comments, a spokesperson for Flo Health said: “We firmly believe that women’s health has been critically overlooked, undervalued, and underfunded for far too long.

“This is evidenced by the fact that in 2023, less than 25% of all deals went to female-founded companies [in the US], and as of today, femtech companies receive only 3% of digital health funding.

“Our sincere hope is that Flo’s most recent funding will inspire more investors to recognise the immense potential in this space”.

They added that Flo has 56% female employees, including its chief medical officer, Dr Anna Klepchukova.

Responding to the debate, female founders told Digital Health News about their concerns with venture capital funding.

Dr Rachael Grimaldi, chief executive at CardMedic, said: “Flo’s growth story is one to celebrate as it represents more money being driven into women’s health  – an area we know has historically been underfunded, under-researched, and under-served from fertility to cancer.

“As a female co-founder and CEO of a scaling company, I am witness to the inequity in the system and familiar with the evidence that demonstrates women have a tougher task securing funding than our male peers.

“This is grossly unfair and I am grateful for the investors, and stakeholders that are shining a spotlight on the issues of inequity, bias and sexism that exists”.

Rachel Murphy, founder of business consultancy The Grafter and advisor to health tech communications agency Silver Buck, said it is “criminal” that women-founded start-ups receive 2% of venture capital funding.

“Women are founders and can do equally, or has research has shown, a better job than male counterparts.

“In some areas, women-owned companies have provided double the average return on investment than those owned by men.

“As a result of the lack of funding flowing to women-owned companies, more female founders are bootstrapped, and this has a knock-on effect when it comes to women believing they are in a position to build and make their start up a success in the first place,” Murphy said.

She added: “We need to encourage girls from a much younger age that they can go and do this, but we also must have a vehicle and system to make it a reality”.