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Flow Health has raised $200 million from private equity firm General Atlantic, becoming the first fully digital women’s health startup to be valued at more than $1 billion, as investors jump on the growing market for fertility and menopause products.
The period and fertility tracking tool, the world’s largest by number of users, will use the funding to build out features such as symptom analysis for the estimated 450 million women worldwide who experience perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms each year, according to McKinsey.
The UK-based app aims to “provide the most personalized experience for users of all ages and demographics,” including the “unexplored territory” of women going through perimenopause and menopause, CEO Dmitry Gurski told the Financial Times.
Anna Kleptuchkova, Flow’s chief medical officer, said targeting these users was a “natural move” for the company, which had previously only catered to those who menstruate.
Investors are finally waking up to the $36 billion potential of the women’s health care market, which DealRoom estimates has suffered from a lack of research and years of underinvestment.
Funding for startups focused on women’s health care is set to grow 5% between 2022 and 2023, despite a general downturn in health investment, according to a Deloitte analysis of Pitchbook data.
General Atlantic’s president Jesse Cai and managing director Tangene Said will join Flow’s board of directors as part of the deal. The private equity group is known for backing fast-growing technology companies such as Alibaba, Facebook and ByteDance.
London-based Flow, co-founded in Belarus in 2015 by Dmitry and Yuri Gurski, said it had nearly 5 million paying subscribers as of last month. The company expects revenue from subscriptions, which vary by region but start at £4.99 per month in the UK, to exceed $200 million this year.
Flow is the latest startup looking to enter the expanding market for drugs to treat menopause and pre-menopausal syndrome, a sector that has grown rapidly in recent years as discussions about menopause have become more mainstream.
“People are thinking about it, talking about it and investing in it,” said Elizabeth Bailey, co-founder of boutique venture capital fund RH Capital.
Flo gained attention in September 2022 when it launched a free “anonymous mode” after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned women’s constitutional right to abortion, putting privacy concerns in the spotlight. The setting allows users to log and analyze symptoms without linking any personal data to their name.
But Flo’s update comes after the company was publicly reprimanded following an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission over allegations that it shared users’ menstrual cycle and fertility data with analytics teams at third-party companies, including Google and Facebook, and agreed to improve its product in 2021.
Flo’s active user numbers dropped immediately after the Supreme Court ruling due to concerns that personal information could be used to incriminate women if they sought an abortion, but have since seen an increase, according to Sensor Tower.
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Flo’s rivals include sexual health app Rosy, which in May announced it was expanding its service to include menopause, endometriosis and uterine fibroids.
Meanwhile, period and fertility tracker Clue launched a menopause mode in September that lets users log symptoms like hot flashes, sleep changes and mood.
