糖心视频

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A male venture capitalist once , 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to talk about vaginas every Monday morning in my partner meeting.鈥�

Although nearly every woman has a vagina, the word itself can be enough to prevent men, the , from investing in vagina-based innovations 鈥� or women鈥檚 health in general. Female founders received only of all venture capital funding in 2022 and female founders of women鈥檚 health companies received even less than that.

However, when it comes to innovation and improvements for women, female-led women鈥檚 health companies are poised to succeed.

Women are of the health care workforce, make of household health care decisions, and spend more per-capita on health care than men. They , are to have chronic health care conditions, and see health care providers than men.

They are also more likely than men to experience, 础濒锄丑别颈尘别谤鈥檚,, and, among others. Other conditions 鈥� such as, and 鈥� affect them exclusively.

Women’s intuition plays a role

Women are so intertwined with health care 鈥� as decision-makers, patients and workers 鈥� that they have the insight to identify white spaces, drive innovation and understand the direct and indirect costs of ignoring women鈥檚 health.

For example, women: a role with a estimated value in the U.S. and globally. Unhealthy women might not have the emotional, mental, or physical abilities to keep those in their care healthy as well, including children, parents, or in-laws.

They also might not be able to work to their full potential, or even work at all: If all paid working women in the United States did not 鈥� or could not 鈥� work for a single day, the country would lose almost in terms of GDP. Yet, women with period pain saw nearly in lost productivity per year while of surveyed women with endometriosis reported missing work. Quantified, the estimated indirect costs of PMS are per woman and greater than for endometriosis.

Women helping women

The best people to understand, experience and address this need for healthy women are one and the same: women.

Female leadership has already proven its value: Women in leadership or board roles have , , and than mostly or all–male teams. Women-led companies also had and than all-male teams and generated of revenue per dollar raised compared to all-male teams鈥� 31 cents.

Thus, female-led health care companies address an otherwise overlooked market and have successful, skillful leaders at their helm. They have already started to see major successes too: became the first while , and had some of the largest fundraising rounds for women鈥檚 health companies ever.

Acquisitions of by , by , by , and by show that established companies are recognizing the value of women鈥檚 health 鈥� and may encourage others to follow. Plus, all these startups were founded and/or are led by women.

While male investors may not want to say the word vagina, their historic lack of focus on and funding for women鈥檚 health has created a massive market vacuum. Female leaders, especially those of women鈥檚 health companies, can successfully capitalize on this overlooked opportunity and, in the process, improve health outcomes for women everywhere.

听 is the co-founder and managing partner of , which invests in early-stage women’s health and female-led life science ventures. For 30-plus years, Greub has invested in public and private life science companies as an institutional investor, a corporate M&A executive, a hedge fund analyst, and a private venture investor. She graduated from and .

Illustration: Dom Guzman