The Rise of Femtech

In the last decade, we have seen a rise in businesses leveraging technology to offer products and services dedicated to “improving” women’s health. This new market segment has been dubbed “femtech,” and, according to Frost & Sullivan, it has the potential to reach $50B by 2025. Because femtech is relatively new, there is little empirical research about it. However, the topic has received a great deal of attention from the popular press, and we can also learn from prior work in cognate areas (e.g., gender diversity and innovation). This research overview provides a brief history of femtech and a summary of the existing academic work and industry research. Below, we begin by defining femtech, describing the importance of this new term—including backlash to it—and discussing what femtech signals about entrepreneurship, technology, and women’s health more broadly.

What counts as femtech?

When people talk about femtech, they are referring to a subset of medical technology (or “medtech”) products and services addressing issues historically and conventionally associated with the reproductive health of cisgender women. That is, the vast majority of femtech addresses issues like contraception and assisted fertility such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), pregnancy and post-pregnancy, breastfeeding, menstruation and period care, pelvic health, menopause, hormonal disorders (e.g., polycystic ovary syndrome), health and fitness, and sexual wellness. Femtech can help individuals and couples monitor and predict cycles that come with a very large financial investment. Some femtech companies—such as Maven, a virtual clinic for women—also address women’s health in general.

How to cite

Menking, A., & Kaplan, S. (2020). The rise of femtech. Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub, Institute for Gender and the Economy. https://wekh.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/The_Rise_of_Femtech.pdf 

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