{"id":135589,"date":"2025-09-13T23:14:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T23:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/135589\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T23:14:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T23:14:22","slug":"the-femtech-positioning-problem-femtech-insider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/135589\/","title":{"rendered":"The Femtech Positioning Problem | Femtech Insider"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following guest post was written by\u00a0Carolyn Rush, Strategy Director at Koto<\/a> and a postpartum doula. She explores the growing gap between femtech\u2019s market momentum and its brand maturity, outlining why trust, positioning, and strategy are now make-or-break for health startups.<\/p>\n

\"\"Carolyn Rush is a Strategy Director at Koto. Image: Carolyn Rush<\/p>\n

In 2016, the term \u201cfemtech\u201d was mostly synonymous with tracking your cycle. Fast forward almost a decade and it\u2019s now set to become a $100B market in the next five years<\/a>, covering everything from menopause and mental health to hormone testing and longevity.<\/p>\n

But, for all the momentum, the sector\u2019s positioning hasn\u2019t quite kept pace. That\u2019s because there\u2019s a paradox at the heart of femtech. On one hand, the opportunity is huge. Over 80% of women<\/a> experience a reproductive health issue in their lifetime and obstetrical complications affect more than 33% of women worldwide<\/a>. Yet femtech companies attract just 2% of total venture capital<\/a>, and less than 5% of health tech startups focus on women\u2019s health. Even within clinical research, obstetrics accounts for less than 2% of trials<\/a> in the US, which is a stunning disparity given the scale of unmet need.<\/p>\n

Before becoming a strategist at Koto, I was the Head of Brand at Robyn<\/a>, the first marketplace for integrative maternal wellness providers supporting people through fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum. As one of the early employees, I helped build the MVP product, shape go-to-market strategy, and navigate the fundraising process. Alongside that work, I trained and continue to practise as a birth and postpartum doula, which has deeply informed my view on how support systems for women\u2019s health are designed, both digitally and in real life.<\/p>\n

As someone who has worked both inside femtech startups and alongside them in agency settings, I\u2019ve seen the ripple effects of this imbalance firsthand. The result is a sector that\u2019s often underfunded, under-researched, and underestimated \u2013 and whose brands are fighting not just for consumer awareness, but for legitimacy.<\/p>\n

Part of the challenge is rooted in how women\u2019s health has historically been positioned more as wellness than infrastructure. That framing has helped open up conversations, but it\u2019s also invited confusion, exclusion, and \u2013 in some cases \u2013 outright harm. Just look at the data privacy concerns surrounding period tracking apps, or the conversations around brand trust that followed a regulatory review of Natural Cycles<\/a> in 2018 triggered by reports of unintended pregnancies at a Stockholm hospital. While the Swedish Medical Products Agency ultimately found the app\u2019s effectiveness to be in line with published data, moments like this have damaged public trust in the sector overall.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no doubt that the stakes are high, because femtech brands aren\u2019t just building products. They\u2019re navigating a space with systemic barriers baked in \u2013 from insurance reimbursement to regulatory scrutiny to cultural stigma \u2013 so the odds are often stacked against them. Founders in this space need to understand medical research, policy, user psychology, and brand trust all at once, while many are still pre-seed or Series A.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why positioning is more than just a communications exercise in femtech and health. It\u2019s a strategic imperative.<\/p>\n

What does a successful femtech brand look like in 2025, then? It\u2019s one that recognises the shift from single-use apps to integrated platforms, from track-your-period tools to multi-touch ecosystems that support users through multiple life stages.<\/p>\n

Midi<\/a>, for instance, is bridging virtual care and hormone therapy for midlife women, while Juno Bio<\/a> is building better microbiome testing for overlooked conditions. Even Oura <\/a>\u2013 often perceived as a lifestyle tool \u2013 is actively pursuing payer partnerships and deeper clinical relevance.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Midi Health Foundering team and investors: GV Executive Venture Partner Cathy Friedman, Midi Health Co-founder Kathleen Jordan, MD, Midi Health Co-founder Jill Herzig, Felicis Ventures General Partner Victoria Treyger, Operator Collective Founder Mallun Yen, Midi Health Co-founder Sharon Meers, Midi Health Co-founder and CEO Joanna Strober, Emerson Collective Managing Partner Fern Mandelbaum, SemperViren Partner Allison Baum Gates, GV General Partner Frederique Dame. Image: Midi Health<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a noticeable tone shift happening. If 2015\u20132020 was the \u201cGirlboss era\u201d of femtech \u2013 all aspirational storytelling and community-first vibes \u2013 we\u2019re now entering a more clinical, data-led phase. AI, at-home diagnostics, and hormone tracking tools are pushing the category closer to biotech, where credibility is currency. Consumers are rightly demanding more evidence and fewer empty claims. (See warnings about unregulated menopause supplements, or Kanya Mano\u2019s Substack<\/a> on the costly consequences of skipping early consumer testing.)<\/p>\n

What\u2019s very clear is that science alone isn\u2019t enough. Adoption still hinges on resonance and on whether a product feels safe, inclusive, and genuinely designed for its users. For that, brand strategy plays a critical role, not just in selling features but in selling commitment. Of course it also helps with marketing efficacy, but first and foremost it helps shape experiences that people trust.<\/p>\n

Brand strategy sits at the intersection of audience and culture. When done well, it can go much deeper than a surface level exercise, informing product decisions, go-to-market plans, partnerships and even internal culture. At its core, a strong brand strategy helps you define who you are, what you do, who you\u2019re for, and why you matter. It carves out a clear position in the world and builds a foundation for every layer that follows, like messaging, storytelling, design, community, and growth.<\/p>\n

In the femtech category, where emotional resonance and scientific credibility must coexist, brand strategy helps founders balance the two. It helps them build not just a visual identity, but a platform for consistent communication, behaviour, and decision-making. It gives shape to the big vision behind the business and the thing that sets them apart from a wave of increasingly clinical-sounding competitors.<\/p>\n

I see the same core question emerging. In a field defined by underfunding, data mistrust, and cultural stigma, how do you build a brand that reassures as much as it resonates?<\/p>\n

We have a huge opportunity to move past pinkwashing and surface-level solutions and build femtech brands that are ambitious, rigorous, and radically user-first. To do that, we need to design not just with women in mind, but with them at the table.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, we need to acknowledge that femtech isn\u2019t a niche anymore. It\u2019s the future of healthcare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The following guest post was written by\u00a0Carolyn Rush, Strategy Director at Koto and a postpartum doula. She explores…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-135589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}