ON TEST: FEMTECH

Women’s health tech is fast becoming a multibillion dollar industry, spearheaded by female innovators. We put some of their most promising products to the test…

The tech industry is still stubbornly male-dominated (in 2017, 79 per cent of venture capitalist funding went to all-male teams), but the proportion of female-led start-ups is on the rise.

Those companies are learning about the effect of hormonal fluctuations and menstrual cycles on women’s health, innovating around pregnancy and breastfeeding, and tackling issues like postnatal depression and the disproportionate amount of women affected by Alzheimer’s.

Meanwhile, apps and online shopping are making it easier for women to experiment with tech that might still be considered taboo. This emerging industry has been dubbed ‘femtech’, and market analysts Frost & Sullivan have recently forecast that it’ll be worth $50bn by 2025. We’re testing three femtech products that address common issues: conceiving a child, menstrual pain, and stress urinary incontinence. Now that top innovators are tackling these issues, how much better off are we?