Flo Health achieves unicorn status, but is a male-led team fit for femtech?
Flo Health recently reached top-dog level status, raising more than $200 million in a Series C investment from General Atlantic and therefore becoming the first European femtech unicorn. Flo is a period tracker app that provides medically certified information regarding ovulation and all things menstruation. And, according to its website, the platform also boasts an impressive 68 million monthly active users and 380 million downloads. It’s catered to help anyone who menstruates understand their cycle and predict monthly changes. There’s just one small catch—this “women’s health app” is founded by, funded by, and run almost entirely by… men.
The excitement over Flo’s recent financial success paled slightly when netizens, publications, and women from within the tech industry all pointed out how the app’s abundance of investors likely had a lot to do with its male-dominated team.
But before we get into the nitty gritty stuff, let me clear up a couple of things. For those of you who don’t know what a unicorn company is, which, I’ll be honest, was my case up until about three days ago, it’s a startup company valued at over $1 billion which is privately owned and not listed on a share market. Meanwhile, a femtech company provides services and specialises in women’s health.
Femtech companies tend to struggle the most when it comes to attracting funding. In 2023, European startups raised just $191 million, a fraction of the $9.7 billion shelled out on the wider health tech sector. So, Flo’s recent win has understandably been making headlines everywhere.
Welcome back to Explained By a Blonde. This week, I’m tackling a question that becomes more relevant with each passing day, especially when Elon Musk exists: Why is the tech industry still dominated by men? And more specifically, is it problematic for a women’s health app to be led by men?
Understanding the controversy surrounding Flo Health
Flo is undoubtedly an impressive platform. It provides users with highly personalised and curated cycle and ovulation tracking, health insights, visual content, and private digital discussion. Plus, its growth since its conception in 2015 has been pretty remarkable.
Also, can I just note that the partner feature on the app is a massive slay? If I ever get a significant other, I will 100 per cent require them to know which period symptoms correspond with each day of my cycle. This isn’t an ad, I swear.
@heybriajones tbh it really is helpful to our marriage #floapp #husband
♬ original sound - Bria
Speaking on reaching unicorn status, Dmitry Gurski, co-founder and CEO of Flo Health, stated: “When we started Flo, we identified a huge gap in women’s health services. Now, we’re a leader in a global movement to make women’s health a priority everywhere. We’re already helping hundreds of millions of women, and our goal is to reach one billion women through our global pro-social program.”
But while Flo’s success is an objective win for the women’s health industry, it’s also understandable why a number of people have questioned the role its male-dominated leadership team might have played.
There are several challenges female founders face in the tech industry that their male peers simply do not, and finding investors is one of them. Studies have shown that Venture Capital (VC) investors are more likely to favour male founders. Moreover, a 2019 report found that there is still a massive gender gap when it comes to male-led versus female-led startups raising funds.
Female founders still face stereotypes and sexism, and are often underestimated despite the fact that they have a proven track record of success. An incredibly powerful study recently conducted by a VC showed that female-founded companies within the tech industry in its portfolio outperformed its investments with all male-founded teams by 63 per cent.
In a now-viral LinkedIn post, Anna-Sophie Hartvigsen, cofounder of investment learning app and community for women Female Invest wrote: “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.”
And while this argument stands, Deepali Nangia, a partner at Speedinvest, penned a strong response to Hartvigsen, writing: “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. 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.”
I think both opinions matter. We can celebrate Flo’s success while also commenting on how female founders continue to be underfunded and underrepresented in the tech industry. I will say, with period poverty continuing to impact so many individuals across the world, a win for menses, is a win overall.
