Why do we distinguish FemTech products from other tech products?

TL;DR: FemTech has grown from a niche term coined in 2016 into a $63 billion market projected to reach $267 billion by 2035. Despite this growth, women remain underrepresented in healthcare leadership (15% of CEOs) and startup funding (~1% of VC capital). The term exists because healthcare historically treated the male body as the default — and until that changes, a distinct category helps drive visibility, investment, and innovation.

Haven't we all heard questions about how to refer to FemTech products? For instance:

• Aren't those tech products like all the others?

• Doesn't distinguishing these products by name make it more difficult for founders to raise funds and find customers?

Or our favorite:

• Why aren't there MenTech products?

Fortunately, such questions are being forgotten and FemTech is quickly becoming a massive part of the tech industry with a lot more press coverage and nine-figure investments.

The FemTech market reached ~$63 billion in 2025, and is projected to hit

The projections for the FemTech market are very optimistic. Even so, the market remains a fraction of women's total healthcare spending, which continues to far outpace FemTech's current valuation.

FemTech was first discussed when in 2016 Ida Tin, the co-founder of the menstrual tracking app Clue used the term for the first time on a panel discussion devoted to female health at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference.

Interestingly, by the following year, a dozen or so panels on women's health and its various aspects were organized at SXSW in Austin, which shows both the growing need to talk about women's health, the challenges, and the solutions in this area.

Historically, women have always gotten the short end of the stick in terms of healthcare. For decades, healthcare products were designed without much attention to physiological differences between men and women. The long uphill battle for women's rights has been spread over decades, and has come in waves.

Do we need the FemTech term? What about MenTech?

Nowadays, with the rise of FemTech, women are no longer simply making do with what's available - they have taken business into their own hands and are using technology to bring improvement, women for women.

When women make up 50% of the population, why do we need to talk loudly about women's health challenges and solutions? Consider what Olivia Goldhill somewhat controversially wrote in her article for Quartz titled "'FemTech' is not and should not be a thing":

"Though the term 'FemTech' may have served the valiant role of protecting some men from talking about periods, taking a narrow group of products and labeling them 'female' has unfortunate consequences. This designation effectively implies that half the population is a sub-niche market with a series of body-specific needs. Where, after all, is the talk of 'MenTech'? There isn't any. All the 'male technology,' such as voice-recognition technology that recognizes male voices better than female, or phones that are too big for women's hands and don't fit in pockets designed for women, aren't designated 'MenTech.' They're just the norm".

Goldhill goes on to mention 1949, when Simone de Beauvoir's book "The Second Sex" was published, in which the philosopher describes a world in which men are regarded as the norm and women as the "other". It is enough to note that the male pronoun is still used as a gender-neutral placeholder, and many categories such as genres of books are either neutral or feminine literature.

As it turns out, 77 years after the publication of de Beauvoir's book, the stigmatization of the "weaker" or "other" gender is still alive, so that giving a distinctive category such as FemTech does not surprise anyone, and even seems necessary, while MenTech does not exist and the term GenderTech is becoming more and more popular.

Seven decades have passed since Simone de Beauvoir wrote about the need for equality and feminism, and women in the healthcare industry are still under-represented. About 65% of healthcare employees are women, but they make up only 20–50% of senior executives and 15% of CEOs. Due to such huge disproportions and the dominance of men, decision-makers, procedures, devices and treatment, have so far been dominated by a "neutral" approach, that is, by a standard approach aimed at men.

Because FemTech is a small part of the entire digital health and technology industry and the term is not yet widely used, it is difficult for women to get started in it. As Aagya Mathur said: "Whenever I search 'FemTech [fill in the blank]', Google suggests, 'Did you mean: edtech [fill in the blank]'. That's a concise illustration of the 'difficulty' - even Google doesn't recognize FemTech as a category".

80% of women

This is a cliché, but female physiology differs from male physiology and because of gender differences, women and men are more likely to develop different diseases. Equality should be about access and treatment, but it should not pretend that we are all built the same. FemTech startups are taking on a wide range of issues and conditions that disproportionately affect women including osteoporosis, breast cancer, autoimmune conditions, stroke, thyroid issues, chronic fatigue, anxiety, and depression.

Interestingly, when services are "neutral" and targeted mainly at men, according to the American Heart Association, 80% of women are the primary healthcare decision makers for their households and are also responsible for the majority of family healthcare spending. Women over age 19 also spend more per capita on healthcare than men. This means that health tech startups should, however, target their offices and services with greater care to women.

Investments in FemTech are, without a doubt, increasing. FemTech companies raised $1.2 billion in 2024 alone, and over $8 billion has been invested all-time across 3,980+ companies. The market has grown from a $50 billion projection to a $63 billion reality in 2025, on track to reach $267 billion by 2035.

Such development is strongly influenced by education but still a break with taboos concerning women, such as menstruation, breast tissue support, menopause, fertility, sexual health. This only drives the needs of women, and therefore startup developers, to create products and services that respond to customer needs.

Tech companies with women achieve 35% higher ROI than those led by men

As far as financing is concerned, the low level of support for FemTech, especially at the beginning, may be due to the fact that women are underrepresented not only in the healthcare industry, but by VCs too. According to the Kauffman Foundation, private tech companies with women at the helm achieve 35% higher ROI than those led by men, but in 2024, companies with all-women founders received just 1% of VC funding. And the gender breakdown in the VC world itself may be to blame: women make up only 15.4% of venture capital decision-makers. Finally, only about 5% of funding for healthcare research and development is invested in women's health globally.