Women’s health and its startups constructing related breast pumps, interval trackers, and different apps and {hardware} designed for ladies have collectively pulled in additional than $5 billion in funding within the final 5 years, however the market is tight, and now, two of the trailblazers within the house are coming collectively as consolidation beckons.
Willow, the San Francisco startup that made its title with wearable breast pumps, is buying Elvie, which began with a wise Kegel coach earlier than increasing to different merchandise for brand spanking new moms, together with its personal breast pumps and most lately, a bassinet.
Terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed however we perceive that it’s coming as Elvie enters administration. The London startup raised greater than $186 million during the last 12 years with buyers, together with Octopus Ventures, BlackRock, and Blume Equity, amongst others. Its final valuation was $241 million, per information from PitchBook.
The corporations have been in dialog for a while, after Willow approached Elvie to purchase it. But as talks progressed, Elvie additionally approached the top of its runway.
“The transaction is taking shape after many months of alternative expectations,” Willow CEO Sarah O’Leary mentioned in an interview.
We perceive Willow is taking up the prevailing enterprise, together with its merchandise and group. There are at the moment 170 individuals working throughout London and Bristol, though some of these are already understanding their discover durations and received’t be approaching to Willow.
For its half, Willow has raised round $254 million in a mix of fairness and debt with buyers, together with the likes of NEA and Meritech. Its valuation, per PitchBook, had risen to as a lot as $256 million in 2021 (a excessive watermark for enterprise funding on the whole) however had dropped in 2024 when the corporate raised a mix of fairness and debt.
O’Leary, who stepped into the CEO position on the finish of 2023, declined to touch upon its present valuation however mentioned that the corporate could also be seeking to elevate extra later this yr.
Elvie’s tip into chapter speaks to some of the broader challenges on the planet of ladies’s health, which is estimated to be a $60 billion market this yr however has confronted a quantity of headwinds. The market since 2021 has continued to be difficult for later-stage startups, particularly these that aren’t targeted virtually solely on AI. There aren’t quite a bit of exit alternatives for ladies’s health companies in the meanwhile. Plus, as O’Leary factors out, the market (eyeing that $60 billion determine, little question) has been flooded with a plethora of cheaper merchandise.
Cheaper is one downside, however so is the truth that there are only a lot of comparable merchandise available in the market. Elvie has sued at the least one firm for patent infringement up to now (unsuccessfully), and apparently it was additionally the topic of a patent swimsuit itself — filed by Willow. An acquisition places that battle to relaxation.
The current drama with 23andMe additionally highlights some of the large points with managing person information, particularly health information, when issues go awry with the enterprise. And that’s maybe much more the case with ladies’s health and reproductive companies within the present political local weather.
And, as ever, {hardware} — or at the least the power to show {hardware} startups into worthwhile companies — stays exhausting.
Willow’s hope is that its acquisition of Elvie marks the beginning of some wider consolidation and Willow’s personal efforts to construct out a wider platform: If exit alternatives are few and much between, then make your individual platform and develop into the consolidator.
Women’s health as a class actually arose over time as it turned, because of the cloud, smartphones and improvements in massive information analytics, easier-to-build apps to have interaction with the market, and {hardware} prototypes launched through crowdfunding platforms to gauge shopper curiosity. These merchandise additionally got here out of a extra empowered demographic demanding tech to assembly their very own wants. Now Willow’s problem — and alternative — will probably be to see if it might probably convert that into revenue over time.
“We want to show that femtech products are not only great stories, but great businesses,” she mentioned.