Women’s health investment status mid-2024

The first half of 2024 has brought positive momentum for women’s health, from President Biden’s Executive Order on Advancing Women’s Health Research and Innovation to Vice President Harris’ support for women’s reproductive health and safety, from the launch of the Women’s Health PAC to Melinda French-Gates’ plan to invest $1 billion in women and their health.

But in this article, we’ll look not at policies, plans, or PACs, but at women’s health fundraising data for the first half of the year, from January 1 to June 30, 2024. We’ll compare the 2024 midpoint fundraising data to historical midpoints to see how women’s health is doing from an investment perspective. And in the process, it will serve as a half-yearly follow-up to our January article, which predicted that 2024 could be a long-awaited standout year for women’s health.

As of the first half of 2024 (abbreviated as 1H24), venture capital (VC) funding for women’s health companies (defined as U.S.-based, venture capital-backed companies classified by PitchBook Data as “women’s health,” “women’s health care,” or “FemTech”) has increased in 2024 compared to the first half of the previous several years. As of June 30, 2024, these companies had raised a total of $679.48 million in VC funding, slightly (3%) above the previous mid-year record of $660.02 million in 2022. (Note: These figures include companies with female founders, male founders, female CEOs, and male CEOs, as well as companies with founders or CEOs whose gender is not reported in PitchBook Data.) If current funding levels are sustained through the end of the year, the women’s health sector could see its highest funding levels in years in 2024 and even surpass its most recent record of $1.25 billion in 2021.

The average deal size for women’s health companies has also been steadily increasing, reaching $12.58 million as of June 30, 2024, the highest half-year average deal size ever and the highest year-to-date average deal size in the past five years.

But when it comes to leadership of these women’s health companies, male CEOs and male founders still have an advantage over women when it comes to fundraising.

Going into 2024, PitchBook Data found that female founders and CEOs in the women’s health space are seeing larger average deal sizes than their male founders and CEOs for the first time in years. For the full 2023 calendar year, on average, female founders raised $13.1 million, male founders raised $9.5 million, female CEOs raised $11.4 million and male CEOs raised $9.2 million.

As of mid-year, male leaders (a term that includes both founders and CEOs) have begun to surpass female leaders in average deal size. On average, female founders raised about $3.5 million, male founders raised $29 million, female CEOs raised $10.3 million, and male CEOs raised $22.3 million in the first half of 2024. In other words, male founders raised about 8.3 times as much as female founders, and male CEOs raised about 2.2 times as much as female CEOs. This difference is the largest gap between male and female founders has experienced at a half-year point in the past five years (surpassing the previous high of 3.99x in the first half of 2021) and the second-largest gap between male and female CEOs has experienced at the same time (after 4.0x in the first half of 2022).

This data may seem depressing, but it’s not entirely new. Male founders and CEOs have raised more money on average than their female counterparts, not just in women’s health care, but in almost every sector. Only last year did this trend seem to change specifically for women’s health care. In that time, female CEOs closed more deals on average than male CEOs at both the half-year and end of the year, and female founders closed more deals on average than male founders at the end of the year. Female founders in particular saw a surge in the second half of 2023, lagging behind male founders in average deal size at mid-year ($11.6 million vs. $17.7 million, respectively) but surpassing male founders at the end of the year ($13.1 million vs. $9.5 million, respectively). The same may be true this year, and in the process, it shows that the gains for female leaders in 2023 were not just a one-off event, but the beginning of a trend reversal.

In addition to smaller average deal sizes than men, female leaders also raised less capital overall than men. In the first half of 2024, female founders raised $59.7 million and female CEOs raised $266.9 million, for a combined total of $326.6 million for these two groups. In the first half of 2024, male founders raised $463.8 million and male CEOs raised $290.5 million, for a total of $754.3 million, which is 2.3 times the amount raised by female leaders.

However, the silver lining is that the total amount of venture capital received by the women’s health space is trending upwards overall, regardless of the gender of the founder or CEO. For example, as of the half year, the total amount raised by male and female CEOs in the women’s health space was a combined $557.4 million, the highest total amount raised in any half-year period in the past five years. As of the half-year, the total amount raised by male and female founders in the women’s health space was a combined $523.5 million, the second-highest total raised in any half-year period for this particular group, behind only the $674.2 million raised in the first half of 2021. (Note: There may be some overlap in these data sets, as some companies have both female founders and CEOs, and some have both male founders and CEOs.)

Relatedly, the number of women’s health companies raising more than $50 million is also on the rise: According to PitchBook, in the first half of 2024, at least four women’s health companies (BilliontoOne, Midi Health, Willow, and Comanche Biopharma) raised more than $50 million in a single funding round from VCs, two in the first half of 2023 (Kindbody and Antiva Biosciences), one in the first half of 2022 (Ro), and three in the first half of 2021 (Thirty Madison, Ro, and Everly Health). (These figures only include VC rounds, not acquisitions or debt refinancings, and only include deals that closed in the first half of the year, so they don’t include companies like Maven, which raised $90 million in November 2022 and $110 million in November 2021.) Of these nine companies, five (Antiva Biosciences, Everly Health, Kindbody, Midi, Willow) have a female CEO, and four have a female founder or co-founder (Everly Health, Kindbody, Midi, Willow).

Women’s health has also remained stable in the percentage of venture capital it receives compared to general healthcare companies (companies that are not necessarily focused solely on women’s health or that are classified as “health” or “healthcare” by PitchBook Data). Since 2019, an average of 2.1% of venture capital funding invested in healthcare companies has gone to women’s health companies at the half-year mark, and an average of 2.7% has gone by the end of the year. In the first half of 2024, women’s health companies received about 2.5% of this funding. This figure is slightly above the half-year average and, with cautious optimism, could suggest that women’s health may receive an above-average percentage of funding by the end of 2024.

That said, in the first six months of 2024, the women’s health space saw some positive trends, including increased investment volumes, higher average deal size, and an increase in funding rounds over $50 million. But overall, like women leaders across all industries, women leaders in the women’s health space still find themselves on an uneven playing field, with female founders and CEOs in the women’s health space raising less and raising less on average per round than their male founders and CEOs.

That being said, every dollar invested, regardless of the gender of the company’s founder or CEO, has the potential to benefit a sector of women’s health that has historically been overlooked, underinvested in, and undervalued, which is why fundraising should remain a priority in the second half of 2024 and beyond to complement recent positive momentum in women’s health, support tangible change, and bring much-needed investment, improvement, and innovation to the sector.