The Billion-Dollar Opportunity to Help Women Navigate Menopause with Grace

The women’s health and femtech space has boomed in recent years. Femtech alone is projected to grow globally from $47B in 2022 to ~$108.8B in 2032.

Previously taboo topics like menstruation, fertility, and female sexual wellness have hit the mainstream, and institutional money has followed. In 2023:

• Women’s health companies raised $1.1B+ across 120 deals

• Their average deal size reached $10.4m, a historic record

Source: Precedence Research

Get more business ideas and trendy data in our weekly Trends Newsletter.

Despite the boom, only 5% of femtech startups are building solutions for menopause, a stage of life that 1B+ women will be experiencing by 2025.

That’s 12% of the world population – and $600B of spending power left on the table.  

In almost every age group, women consistently spend more on healthcare than men, and they’re 75% more likely to use digital tools for healthcare.

Source: HITLAB

That represents big opportunities for business builders:

Telehealth

The most obvious place to look is the $105.5B telehealth market. Companies that tailor their virtual offering to menopause are already reaping the reward:

• Midi Health, a virtual care clinic for women experiencing menopause and perimenopause, is set to raise $60m merely months after its last $25m round;
• Elektra Health, another virtual provider for menopause care, recently raised $3.3m.

Given the size of the opportunity, there’s still room for other challengers to emerge. As of last September, 45% of women still reported never having talked with their GP about menopause-related systems. Hassle-free, judgment-free virtual health options are vital.

You can also partner with companies to offer virtual menopause care as an employee benefit, like Gennev.  

Support and communities

Menopause can be a socially isolating time for women – 33% of menopausal women feel less outgoing in social situations and 23% feel socially isolated.

Online platforms supporting menopausal women with social bonds, content, and advice are gaining traction – Omena, a menopause support app, raised $858k this year.

But there are plenty of opportunities for others to enter the fray, especially if you focus on different aspects of the experience:

👜 Career: Menopause costs American women ~$1.8B in lost working time every year. Develop a community for career-driven women who want solutions to reclaim productivity (while letting their body do its thing).

💰 Finance: For women between 45-60 in the US, menopause contributes to ~$25B in medical costs. Build an app or community to help them manage and optimize menopause-related spending.

🫂 Partnership: Who else feels lonely during menopause? Spouses and partners who want to help their significant others overcome this tough time. Create support content, or online courses, to help S.O.s co-navigate menopause with the women in their lives.

❤️ Love: Sex and relationships might look different for some women in the menopause stage, and they need a place to find dates with similar goals. For instance, you can refashion an existing asexual dating app to help those who feel like the screenshot below.

Source: r/Menopause

Cooling wristbands like the Embr Wave will set you back ~$300 a piece. Women are also buying other hot flash relief devices such as these $199 cooling pillows, which brings in $1.1m of monthly revenue, per Jungle Scout.

The consumer willingness to pay hundreds of dollars per device signals that there are opportunities for other DTC brands to enter the menopause tech market.

Lightweight, portable cooling devices and accessories based on certain behaviors/occasions (such as this one for exercising) could be one place to start. 

You can also curate products and build “menopause care in a box.” Include cooling devices, bedding, supplements, skincare samples, and feel-good items like scented mist for cooling fans, to create a self care experience.

Want more content like this? Sign up for our weekly Trends email, filled with all sorts of data, deep dives, and trend insights for business builders, entrepreneurs and innovative professionals.