The market for problems like period pain and infertility should actually be gigantic. After all, half of the world's population is female. Brakers are often male investors, because they usually don't know about women complaints.
The femtech industry early detection of illnesses with tampons, tea against hot flashes during menopause, the recognition of fertile days through the air we breathe – the femtech industry wants to tackle female health issues in a targeted manner and is nevertheless often underestimated. "It is often dismissed as a niche," says Maxie Matthiessen, founder of the two femtech companies Ruby Cup and Femna Health. She also noticed this when talking to investors. "But if you look at the menstrual hygiene market alone, it affects half or more than half of the world's population, in other words four billion women. So it's a gigantic market."
Financial experts also see it this way: According to the consulting firm Frost and Sullivan, the femtech industry will have a market potential of $ 50 billion in 2025, equivalent to around € 44.5 billion. However, investments have so far been cautious, even if they have increased significantly in recent years. Across Europe, there were only two venture capital deals in the femtech sector in 2011. Last year there were 22. It was about 250 million euros.
Male investors often have to ask the wife
Investors have recently become more aware of the influence of the industry, says analyst for capital market research firm Pitchbook, Kaia Colban. According to her, the femtech industry has had a tough time with venture capital compared to other startups for two reasons.
First, the majority of investors are male and may not be aware of Femtech's market potential. According to Alexandra Wuttig, professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at the International University IUBH, there is also a lack of understanding of products. "I have personally experienced that male donors are not familiar with women's products and are happy to ask their wives when evaluating the product."
The second reason for Colban: Femtech companies are set up more often than average by women and for them it is typically more difficult to get financing. This is also the result of the Female Founders Monitor 2020 of the Federal Association of German Startups. Accordingly, only about 1.6 percent of female entrepreneurs received venture capital. It was 17.6 percent of men. However, the lower values could also be related to the type of start-up; after all, the interest in such investment deals among women is lower, as the report shows.
Women are less likely to invest riskily
Matthiessen also believes that women tend to think step by step when starting up and therefore demand lower sums first. Nevertheless, the founder says: "I don't think that as a woman I would have got an investment for this idea from Femna in Germany so easily. I think I only got it because I had a proven track record," so it was a success with their Ruby Cup company founded in Denmark. In addition, topics such as the period, infertility or incontinence are taboo.
"The investor would also like to stand for the product with his face," says Bastian Rüther, managing director of Breathe Ilo, a device for detecting the fertile days through the air we breathe. His colleague Lisa Krapinger says that the taboo also influenced the market launch because many women did not like to talk about problems with getting pregnant. "You can also see this in general in the femtech industry, for example if you look in the direction of period or pelvic floor training. Everyone has a hard time at the beginning, because these are topics that are not yet talked about so much.
Measured by the size of the market, it may come as a surprise that innovations in the field of femtech have not already been significantly longer. Wuttig points out that "in the past there was not so much interest and that women's products only needed to be" pink "and sweet to be successful". However, this opinion is currently changing. According to Matthiessen, a still existing hurdle is that predominantly men start up companies. "They may not have that look. So I don't know if a man can imagine what a tampon feels like or what menstrual cramps feel like." If you don't know the problem, you probably won't even think of developing a product to solve it.
And last but not least: Facts were simply missing in some areas. For example, in the development of the Ruby Cup, she would have liked to resort to research on the anatomy of the vagina. However, the desired size data could not be found. Completely surprising for Matthiessen. "We're flying to the moon and you don't know what the radius of the vagina is, so on average."
.