While intended to champion innovation, the ‘femtech’ label has become a frustrating barrier for founders seeking investment and clinical credibility.
According to Sarita Stefani, CEO of the clinical platform Amilis, the term gives investors a convenient excuse to pass on opportunities in a supposedly "crowded" market.
Stefani challenges the industry to move beyond panel discussions, calling for tangible action and visible representation of female founders in VC portfolios.
The term ‘femtech’ was coined to galvanize a movement, but has it become a cage? For a growing number of founders, the label intended to champion innovation for women's health has become an unhelpful, overly broad catch-all that devalues the very companies it aims to support. For investors, this has created a convenient, if flawed, excuse to dismiss an entire sector as "crowded" and "niche"—despite it serving half the world's population.
We spoke with Sarita Stefani, the Co-Founder and CEO of the reproductive healthcare platform Amilis. A winner of the Women's Health Ultimate Role Model Award 2024, Stefani has years of expertise in the healthcare tech industry and is a fierce advocate for improving research and outcomes in women's health. As a founder building a clinical company in this space, the 'femtech' label has become a significant and frustrating barrier to progress.
"How can it be a crowded market when there are two unicorns in the space compared to the hundred thousand I could name in fintech, and yet hundreds of thousands of women are still on the waiting list for a vaginal scan? Where are the success stories? I live and breathe this, and I can't see them." The "crowded market" claim is a rejection Stefani receives on an almost daily basis from potential investors. While she acknowledges the term's positive origins, she argues its overuse has turned it into a lazy pretext for dismissal.
A convenient excuse: "At the beginning, I thought the term was fun. Now I think overusing it is leading to a negative connotation for investors to pass on opportunities," Stefani explains. "It's become a way to say, 'Oh, femtech is a very crowded market. Let's park this opportunity.'"
This broad-brush labeling doesn't just impact funding; it fundamentally misrepresents the nature of the work. By grouping all women-focused businesses together, the term strips highly technical, science-backed companies of their clinical credibility. Stefani’s company, Amilis, is a prime example—a machine-learning platform for doctors that gets lost in a category it shares with direct-to-consumer goods. "On a daily basis, I receive an email saying, 'The market is crowded.' Which market is crowded? What are you talking about?" explains Stefani.
An illogical grouping: "If you're a 'femtech,' you can do literally anything from physical underwear to a tech company like ours that is a clinical decision-making tool for doctors," Stefani notes. "My background is in pharma, and my co-founder is an electrical engineer with a background in machine learning."
Not in the same stable: "Nothing to take away from period pants, but we can't be in the same stable," she clarifies. "It's a different thing from a clinical decision-making, machine learning algorithm that sits with the doctor."
For Stefani, the path forward requires a radical shift from talking about the problem to actively normalizing a new reality. The solution isn’t more panel discussions about bias; it’s tangible action and visible representation that makes women’s leadership and health challenges a wonderfully unremarkable part of the business landscape.
Action over words: "I don't want to talk about it anymore. I just want to go and do it and see it," she declares. "I want to normalize a hugely pregnant woman speaking at a conference about tech and AI. I want to see more of this."
A challenge to VCs: This demand for action extends directly to the investment community, whose public statements about supporting female founders often don’t match their private portfolios. "I want to see more older female founders. Instead of just reading about investors claiming to invest in female founders, I actually want to see them in their portfolios," Stefani says.
This flawed system is built on a paradox. While investors dismiss the space as niche, women hold over 80% of the purchasing power in the world, a fact Stefani notes is consistently overlooked. The core issue, she concludes, is a fundamental miscategorization. The "femtech" label has allowed the industry to quietly cordon off women's health from "real" healthcare, obscuring a massive market opportunity in plain sight.
"They don't see us as healthcare. We are 'femtech' because we serve women. Healthcare and 'femtech' are seen as completely distinct, and that's a huge part of the problem."
