What does it take to succeed as an entrepreneur in female healthcare?

The female healthcare industry presents a unique opportunity for entrepreneurs and business leaders. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), on average women spend 25% more of their lives in poor health than men, due to a historic lack of gender-specific research and funding. This can also impact their performance in the workforce and lead to social inequality. The WEF predicts that just £30m of investment in female healthcare could boost the UK economy by £319m.

This means businesses have the chance to address unmet needs and create products that provide better support for health conditions at a time when access to funding is increasing*. However, educating investors and navigating regulation can prove challenging.

Here, three founders explain how they identified and launched successful businesses in this space.

1. How did you choose the right moment to leave corporate law and launch Peanut?

Leaving the job I loved was a deeply personal decision, but it ultimately came down to recognising a significant gap in the market and feeling compelled to address it. As a new mother, I felt an unexpected sense of isolation despite having a successful career and a strong support system. I realised countless women were experiencing the same thing, yet existing platforms weren’t addressing this need in a way that felt modern or intuitive.

My background in social discovery (I was deputy CEO of dating app Badoo and a founding board member of Bumble) gave me the tools to build a product that could drive meaningful connections for women. When the vision for Peanut became clear, the choice was no longer about leaving my career, it was about building something essential.

2. Why is female health the focus for your business?

Women’s health has historically been overlooked, underfunded, and deprioritised in both medicine and technology. Yet, every woman will experience major life transitions, whether it is fertility, pregnancy, motherhood, or menopause, often without enough education, resources, or community support. We built Peanut to change that.

By making these conversations accessible and ensuring women have a network to rely on, we’re breaking down taboos and ensuring no woman feels alone in her journey. Our vision is to serve women at every life stage, from puberty through to menopause. Our community has given us the insights we need to create products such as Peanut Grow (launching 2025), to be a shoulder to lean on in the days, weeks and months after birth.

3. How have you grown the user base of the Peanut app?

Our most successful lever has always been word-of-mouth growth because women trust other women. Beyond that, we’ve leveraged strategic partnerships, influencer collaborations, and strong in-app engagement features to ensure women continue to see value in the platform. We’ve also invested in content, with a 900% increase in the number of women reading Peanut’s resources each month, proving that education and community go hand-in-hand.

4. You’re reported to have raised around £25m in funding to date. What advice would you give to an entrepreneur who is pitching to investors?

Know your numbers, but more importantly, know your purpose. Investors want to see a scalable business, but they also invest in founders who are deeply committed to solving real problems. You have to be able to articulate why now? and why you? That means addressing what problem you’re solving, the market opportunity, and what makes your approach unique.

5. What criteria do you use to choose your investors?

It’s about alignment. I look for investors who not only provide capital but also bring strategic value, whether that’s industry expertise, strong networks, or a shared belief in Peanut’s mission. I also prioritise investors who understand the female consumer market and the long-term impact of what we’re building. A good investor is a long-term partner, so value alignment is crucial.

6. What is the business milestone you are most proud of?

There are so many, but one that stands out is knowing that a connection is made on Peanut every three seconds. That statistic represents real women finding support, making friends, and feeling less alone.

1. What is different about the nutritional supplement you launched?

As three professional women who make a supplement for our mothers, sisters and friends called The Elevator, we understand the market and what women want. The formulation is specifically designed to support female health. The flavour is not sweet or sugary; it’s easy to take; and the packaging is luxurious and sustainable.

2. What funding and support did you need to get started?

We launched in September 2023 with seed funding and a state investment from Enterprise Ireland. My co-founder and Co-CEO Aoife Matthews also participated in the Going for Growth programme, which supports ambitious female entrepreneurs.

Our founding team is strong and includes a banker, barrister and brand developer. I was a Senior Counsel (the equivalent of a King’s Counsel), before choosing to go full-time with SISTERLY, and I believe that my career change shows a serious commitment to this business.

We also have some great women championing us including Jacqueline O’Donovan OBE and Anne O’Leary, VP of Meta and President of IBEC.

3. What development challenges have you faced?

As our supplement is a food, we are regulated by the European Food and Safety Authority. SISTERLY was three years in development (two-and-a-half years longer than we expected) because we didn’t cut corners.

We continue to work with an expert team led by physiologist Dr Daniel Jones, female health expert Dr Mandy Leonhardt, food scientist Susie Perry and nutritional therapist Adrienne Byrne. Our powder supplement doesn’t contain any sugars or sucralose, which is unusual. It has taken a long time to create something high quality, but it’s been worth the investment.

4. What policy changes do you think would support entrepreneurs in the UK and Ireland?

When scaling a brand, there are inevitable cash flow cycles that need to be met while you buy in stock and wait for sales a few months later. It would be great if there was more state support to bridge the gap for fast-growing businesses.

5. What marketing lessons have you learned?

We have marketed the brand very successfully on Instagram through events and collaborations. We have partnered with major brands including, Boodles, Biologique Recherche, lululemon and others. It’s a very good way of showing people who you are.

We’ve also hosted sea swims, yoga events in Portugal, a sound bath in Daylesford, and a SISTERLY Summit at The Arts Club in London which was supported by Investec. We really enjoy curating events for like-minded women to get together.

6. What have you learned from working in the female healthcare industry?

Before Aoife, Louise and I founded our company, we had no appreciation of just how big the female healthcare knowledge gap was. Until 1993, women were typically excluded from clinical trials because their hormone cycle might impact the results. The impact of this issue is huge. It was only in February 2024 that a new molecule was discovered in the female cell line which may explain why four-out-of-five people who suffer from autoimmune conditions are women. This discovery that could have a massive impact on treatment and early diagnosis.

1. How did your personal experience lead you to become an entrepreneur?

I've suffered with recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs), and I was really frustrated with the lack of innovation and solutions for women in this space. I did a lot of market research myself, and I thought: ’There are so many women who are suffering from this, but no one is really talking about it.’

I’m originally a scientist. I did my PhD at Imperial College London where I studied synthetic biology and bioengineering, so I believed I could be part of the solution. I was interested in how to apply existing technology to women’s intimate health: P.Happi is a serum that uses a natural predator bacterium, called Bdellovibrio, to protect from harmful bacteria in the intimate area.

2. What funding and support did you need to get started?

Five years ago, most investors were men and there wasn’t much excitement about women’s health products. I found it difficult to explain the pain and discomfort that UTIs can cause. As a solo founder, it was also a challenge to raise money for something which was very new, without having data from my PhD. You can't bootstrap [start a company with a minimal amount of capital] science experiments, so I participated in a US accelerator and received funding of around $200,000 to get started.

Although it was during COVID, we found a laboratory space in London so we could generate some data to help us secure intellectual property rights, file a patent and then raise another round of funding.

3. Why did you choose to create a retail product rather than a prescription-only product?

Women can face a lot of barriers accessing help, so we wanted to make our product easily available. It can often be difficult to get a GP appointment and there can be a long wait to get referred to a specialist, so self-care products that can be used from home may provide some relief.

P.Happi was developed as a more natural, sustainable microbiome solution. Antibiotics can be necessary, but they should be taken with caution because they can destroy your natural flora and defences, lead to side effects or cause resistance issues.

Overall, the funding landscape is also not easy. Launching a medically prescribed product and rolling it out via the NHS involves a lot of capital and means it takes longer to reach consumers.

We still conduct studies and have a very scientific approach. This includes our own lab, and research and development programme. We are just finishing a six-month microbiome study with 60 women funded by Innovate UK. So, there are a lot of exciting developments in the pipeline.

4. How do you manufacture the product?

We initially explored outsourcing the manufacturing, but it has been very hard to find the right partners because we are developing a new approach. The live bacterium is in powder form that is integrated into a serum, so the powder and serum must be active and stable.

This means it has taken years and involved high equipment costs to develop the product. It can cost £45,000 just for one dryer – science and innovation require capital and time. However, we are grateful to have supportive investors, and at our lab, we’re able to continue to optimise and scale the product while it’s on the market, which is exciting.

We could have worked with universities, but sadly this can complicate intellectual property rights.

5. Are there any other challenges you think affect entrepreneurs in this industry?

Female health products can be very misleading and confusing for users, because there’s no standardisation of how to use words such as ‘science-based’, ‘clinically proven’, or ‘microbiome-friendly’. It’s a difficult obstacle in terms of marketing, as it can be hard to emphasise your point of difference.

6. What are your goals for the business in the next five years?

At the moment, we're very much focused on the UK market, so I’d like to make the product more widely available to women around the world through partnerships. I think the US is an interesting market because there’s also a financial barrier for women who are seeking help. There also seems to be an openness to big new ideas among investors.

Important information:

This article is for general information purposes only and should not be used or relied upon as professional advice. It is advisable to contact a professional advisor if you need financial advice. The opinions featured are not to be considered the opinions of Investec.

*Statistic source: Silicon Valley Bank Women's Health Report, 2023.