Top Female Entrepreneurs Disrupting Women’s Health & Fertility
Female entrepreneurs are revolutionising women's health and fertility. With many healthcare clients here at WERKIN, we want to shine a spotlight on the remarkable achievements of some inspiring women founders, investors and entrepreneurs, and spread awareness of the groundbreaking work their companies are delivering at scale.
Women in the medical profession have a deep understanding of the challenges faced by other women. With that unique perspective, these innovators are designing solutions that empower all women to make informed choices, navigate fertility treatments, and regain control over their reproductive and general health.
Through meticulously designed apps and platforms, research and treatment breakthroughs, cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and genetic engineering, personalised insights and predictive analytics, these visionary pioneers are driving systemic change within the medical community.
With their remarkable contributions, these women are paving the way for a more comprehensive and compassionate healthcare ecosystem focused on every woman's unique needs. WERKIN celebrates the breaking of any barrier and we love to see innovators working towards a world where gender bias in medicine will be a thing of the past.
Let's celebrate and support their groundbreaking work.
Listed in alphabetical order.
Afsaneh Parvizi-Wayne FRSA - Founder of freda and Modern Menopause
Afsaneh founded Freda Health to disrupt a space lacking transparency and mired in shame and taboo. Freda aims to have its eco-period care products available to women outside of their homes. Afsaneh also founded Modern Menopause which is developing a symptom tracking and a feedback loop using digital biomarkers.
Alice Pelton - Founder of The Lowdown
After suffering side effects from the pill throughout her twenties, Alice singlehandedly built The Lowdon to be the world’s first review platform for contraception. It went viral and has grown from a bootstrapped website into one of the UK’s fastest growing women's health startups and leading sexual and reproductive health platform. It puts women in control of their reproductive health using a unique dataset, medical experts and community of over 2 million women.
Caroline Noublanche - Founder and CEO of Apricity
Caroline is a board member, CEO and Founder who thrives in growing ethically driven and innovative companies. She currently heads the disruptive healthtech start-up Apricity, a virtual fertility clinic that aims at disrupting the fertility treatment experience and improving chances for women and couples who have difficulties conceiving, by using Artificial Intelligence.
Dina Radenkovic - Co-Founder and CEO of Gameto
Dina is a medical doctor, bioinformatics researcher and healthcare entrepreneur. She co-founded Gameto, a biotechnology company, to redefine female reproductive health and solve the problem of accelerated ovarian ageing, using cell engineering to develop therapeutics for diseases of the female reproductive system.
Erika Brodnock - Co-Founder and CEO of Kinhub
As a serial founder, researcher, advisor, entrepreneur and working parent, Erika co-founded Kinhub to create fairer, supportive and more equitable workplaces for everyone. Kinhub provides a secure platform to connect employees to trusted experts and empower them in fields such as parenting, fertility, menopause and mental well-being, helping them to navigate work/life balance and thrive through difficult transitions.
Gina Bartasi - Founder and Executive Chairman of Kindbody
Gina is an entrepreneur, four-time CEO, and mother of twin boys conceived through IVF. With a passion to bring high-quality, affordable fertility care to all, rather than a privileged few, Gina founded Kindbody in response to the demand among employers to buy fertility benefits directly from healthcare providers. In March 2023, Kindbody raised $100 million of later-stage VC funding and anticipates rapid continued growth.
Ida is a writer, speaker, mother and active voice in the Femtech space. A lifelong entrepreneur and a modern feminist, Ida coined the term Femtech in 2016. She co-founded Clue, the most trusted female period tracking and fertility app, with a mission to help people benefit from insights into female health globally. The app received FDA clearance as the world’s first all digital contraceptive, foreseeing periods, fertile windows and PMS.
Julia Cooney - CEO of Zest
Julia is a doctor and digital health entrepreneur focused on preventative healthcare and longevity science, particularly as it pertains to women’s health and extending female fertility. After graduating from Cambridge University, she worked alongside the NHS to integrate remote patient monitoring within care homes before founding Zest. Zest provides personalised AI-driven advice on extending a healthy lifespan based on the latest research in anti-ageing science.
Laura Katz - Founder and CEO of Helaina
Laura is a food scientist, and adjunct professor at NYU and founded Helaina, a biotech company that is disrupting the stagnant infant formula category and pushing the boundaries of what food can do for health. Helaina produces human-milk proteins that provide immunity benefits similar to breast milk and is the first company to bring the immunity properties of breast milk to food for all stages of life, from enhanced infant formula to elderly care nutrition.
Laurie Bertram Roberts - President and Co-Founder of Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund
Laurie is a founder and activist who is passionate about racial, economic, birth, queer, disability and reproductive justice for all. She co-founded the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund, which offers emergency contraception, community based comprehensive sex education, and practical, financial support to people seeking abortion. Laurie also led and sustained Yellowhammer - an Alabama-based abortion fund, clinic, and advocacy organisation, during the pandemic and through Trump’s presidency - despite numerous legal and funding challenges.
Louise Rix - Entrepreneur and Co-Founder
Passionate about women’s health and Femtech, Louise is an Entrepreneur First alumni and medical doctor. Currently the Co-Founder of a stealth startup in women's health, Louise was recently Co-Founder & Chief Medical Officer at Béa Fertility, and a previous VC Investor (pre-series A) in next-generation e-commerce, marketplace and applied AI startups.
Navneet Kaur - Founder - FemTech India
Navneet is a G20 Womens’ Health Representative, podcast host, and founder of FemTech India, which stands as India's first and largest industry network focused on women's health innovation. FemTech India serves as a dynamic hub for founders, professionals, individuals, and investors in the FemTech space, fostering innovation, collaboration, and community-building. It provides a platform for like-minded individuals to connect, exchange ideas, and contribute to the advancement of women's health technologies and solutions. FemTech India invites individuals and FemTech companies to join their journey in driving innovation and making a real difference in the Indian industry and beyond.
Oriana Papin-Zoghbi - Co-founder and CEO of AOA Dx
Oriana is a visionary leader in the field of women's health with a wealth of knowledge and expertise bringing disruptive diagnostics to market and changing the landscape of clinical practice. She founded AOA Dx to revolutionise the early detection of cancers that disproportionately affect women. AOA Dx developed the first early-stage ovarian liquid biopsy diagnostic test to reduce patient mortality and deliver cost savings to payers.
Sharon Handelman-Gotlib - Co-Founder and CEO of Shela
Sharon is an expert in digital health, ageing, femtech and innovation. Driven by a strong commitment to promoting health equity among women, Sharon co-founded Shela as a precision platform for the prediction and prevention of women's health complications. Leveraging machine learning and integrated multiomics approaches, Shela combines clinical and biomarkers to enable early and accurate risk identification. Shela focuses on key pregnancy and postpartum complications.
Thérèse Mannheimer and Estelle Joubert Westling - Founders of Grace Health
Thérèse and Estelle founded the digital health app Grace Health to provide radical accessibility to women’s health education in developing countries. Grace targets the current problem of accessibility and discretion by delivering a scalable platform to the 1.9 billion women in emerging markets who own a phone but lack access to women’s health services and information, by leveraging high-tech mobile technology in a lightweight way.