How to Raise Venture Capital for FemTech Startups

Women’s sexual health is more than a huge (often untapped) market with outsized impacts, it’s also a huge investment opportunity. Learn more about this sector and its many verticals from Carli Sapir, Founding Partner at Amboy Street Ventures, who is sharing with Rachel and Dr. Dweck the ins and outs of raising capital for “femtech” and related startups on this episode of Busine$$ of the V. It may still be a challenge to pitch products and platforms associated with women’s sexuality and pleasure, for instance, but entrepreneurs – mostly women – are out there cracking open space for candid conversation, education and very real financial returns.

 

Carli explains the focus of Amboy Street Ventures as well as its philosophy, which includes a mandate that at least 70% of its investment portfolio go towards female-founded and/or led companies. They’re looking to address overlooked or under-served target markets and fill gaps in areas such as LGBTQ and gender-affirming care, abortion and contraception access and women’s sexual pleasure. Innovations on the horizon not only promise huge profitability but also transformational impacts – such as the introduction of Contraline, an implantable, reversible form of male birth control now under FDA trial and Go Aunt Flow, a free dispenser of pads and tampons in public places. Women’s sexual health and pleasure is big business, and ripe for disruption. “Hopefully we’ll live long enough to see the end of people using the expression ‘Women’s health is niche,’ ” sums up Rachel. “Then we will know that we’ve made some impact on the planet!” The momentum in this space is palpable – and also undeniable.

 

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About Carli Sapir

Carli is a Founding Partner of Amboy Street Ventures and leads the Investment Team. She is also the Founder of the Female Founded Club (FFC), a global platform that introduces VC investors to high-quality female founded startups. Carli has an affinity for startups in the Sexual Health & Women’s Health Technology (SH&WHT) landscape due to personal health experiences. While running the FFC, she recognized that the lack of venture capital flowing to the SH&WHT market is stunting the growth of startups that tackle significant health problems for all genders. Carli founded Amboy Street Ventures to initiate a shift in the funding landscape that, until now, dictated the innovation in the SH&WHT market. Carli has a background in Private Equity and Engineering.