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Global Femtech industry is expected to reach $ 51 billion in 2023, reaching $ 117 billion by 2029. India is considered to be the fastest growing regional market in Asia Pacific, which is not only powered by heritage brands, but also to startup founders who decided to turn the purpose pain. Among them is Shobhita Narayan who found out at the age of 22 that she had a polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a situation that probably affects one of the five Indian women.
“I passed over the years of confusion, frustration and isolation. I jumped from a doctor to the next, listening to any clear diagnosis. I tried many doctors and remedies, but nothing seemed to work. I experienced deep mood, facial hair, and weight gain, and yet, despite meeting many experts, I did not ask a new question.
Worse than that, she often combined with dismissal reactions.
“I was asked to ‘just lose weight’, or even ‘to marry’ would correct everything. Many people did not believe that PCOS was a real problem; he thought it was an estimate of a woman’s imagination. It was very little sympathy, and even less understanding was less,” Shobita said.
It was a very talk that he shared with his sister Shashwata on dinner table conversations. Seeing Shobhita struggle became a awakening.
“We realized that if we are experiencing it, millions of other women should also be. When switch venting was flipped from the building. It was about fixing some such things for us,” says Shashwata.
In 2021, it shared the feeling, finally shaped Veera Health, her platform for women’s hormonal health. With focus on science-supported supplement, the platform is operated as a technical-capable digital clinic, aimed at democratizing access to hormonal health solutions for women across India, including Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
Filling intervals in healthcare industry
The idea was to fill the “systematic interval” for women in healthcare, Shobita, who studied biology and psychology at the University of Tofts and worked with major health organizations before turning an entrepreneur.
“One of the biggest intervals I had seen individually, the lack of products and protocols was actually designed for women. Most of the supplements in the market are based on male physiology figures and are simply prepared for women. Women are actually a structured, science-supported system lies in women’s physiology. It means that it is said that for real time.
Veera Health raised $ 3 million, said that India has an important seed funding in this category. But what were the initial investors or market assumptions about creating a Femtech brand in India?
Shashwata Narayan, who held an MBA from Wharton and studying data science at Yale University, says that initially many investors either saw women’s health as a niche or assumed that it was about reproduction or pregnancy.
“The idea that hormonal health, PCOS, or even weight gain could be a serious, scalable opportunity, was not clear for all. We heard such things too, ‘Will Indian women pay for it?” Or ‘Is it a real problem or just lifestyle-driven?’ It was disappointing, because we were target audiences.
Challenges as women entrepreneurs
In addition, as a female entrepreneur, he came up with a set of prejudice and challenges. Shobita admitted: “The creation of a startup in India is incredibly challenging. Building is even more difficult for women. And both as a woman often seems like a difficult fight!”
In search of a science-supported, stigma-free, female-focused welfare ecosystem, hormonal health, metabolic strength and preventive care, their greatest obstacle was priority.
Explaining this deep-rooting problem in women’s healthcare, Shobhita says, “In India, most women are not encouraged to prioritize their own health. While families are in a hurry to spend clothes, outings, or weddings, the healthcare-especially women who want to work better, but they are working in a better way.
Nevertheless, their main user base is digital-loving women between the ages of 22 to 40, mainly in urban and metro cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune. Most of them are professional, students or new mothers who are navigating busy routines, hormonal challenges and their desire to take charge of their welfare.
Femtech is to live here
Femtech, Shashwata Narayan notes, still have too much space.
“Addressing women’s health means that it is only going beyond breeding or maternal care. It includes menopause, sexual welfare, emotional goodness, and hormonal conditions such as PCOS and thyroid disorders. However, these areas are not weakened at least, and often the stigm is not weakened. The hormonal differences, which delayed in the years, is delayed in the years,” that is delayed in the years. She says
What attention should be the fact that this cost is not only individual, but also economic.
“The health of poorly managed women leads the cost of healthcare, the workforce dropouts, and billions. In India, where the participation of a women’s workforce is already low, ignoring issues like PCOS, Hormonal Wet Gain, Fertility Struggle, and Burnout, it is not really a trend.
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