Why Women’s Health Is Still Underfunded and What Smart Investors Are Doing About It
In 1932, Tillie Olsen was denied financial aid while pregnant and working full-time. A century later, women are still denied capital. Just more politely.
This isn’t a trend. It’s a correction. A reckoning. And investors who can see it clearly have a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
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The Quiet Legacy of Financial Exclusion
In 1932, Tillie Olsen walked into an office to ask for help.
She was 19. Pregnant. Working-class. A child of immigrants. She had been washing meat trays in a packing house and scrubbing carcasses in a butcher shop in Omaha. It wasn’t the kind of job you left. It was the kind of job that left its mark.
She had asked for financial support; welfare, a loan, anything to stay afloat.
They asked if she had a husband. She didn’t. They asked if she had a father who could sign. She said he was dead. They closed the file.
She wasn’t offered a safety net. She wasn’t offered credit. She wasn’t offered care.
Tillie was not an exception. She was the rule.
A rule that said if you were a woman; poor, pregnant, and alone, you were on your own. What she was denied wasn’t just money.
She was denied legitimacy. She was denied capital. (Olsen, 1978; Moylan, 1993).
From Denied Credit to Denied Capital
You think it’s better now? In 2023:
2.8% of global VC went to all-women founding teams (PitchBook, 2024)
Less than 5% of digital health funding went toward innovations focused on women (McKinsey & Company, 2024)
Only 1.7% of global health R&D targeted female-specific conditions (Global Health 50/50, 2023)
These numbers haven’t budged in over a decade. They are not anomalies. They are infrastructure.
The truth is: we’ve rebranded denial. It’s no longer hostile. It’s polite.
“Too early.”
“Too niche.”
“Great mission, but not for us.”
Capital exclusion didn’t disappear. It got a better pitch deck.
Why Women’s Health is Still Underfunded
Let’s be precise: the problem isn’t bad actors. It is a capital stack built on historical myopia, risk aversion, and male-default data.
Menopause costs the U.S. $26 billion a year in lost productivity. (Faubion et al., 2021)
Endometriosis affects 1 in 10 women of reproductive age, yet takes 8 years to diagnose.
Over 33% of women prescribed hormonal contraception receive something contraindicated for them. (Hwang et al., 2021)
This isn’t a care gap. This is a market failure and most investors are missing it.
Why?
Because the systems we trust to vet “investability” were built on what men could measure, not what women experience.
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The Conversation Is Already Changing
Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to moderate a panel at the With Intelligence Partnerships DACH Retreat, a gathering of Europe’s leading capital allocators. The question I asked was:
“What does the next generation really value in wealth?”
We heard the answers from every angle. Family offices. Private Banks. Asset Managers. All the capital allocators around the table agreed on one thing.
It wasn’t about tax efficiency or alpha. The Next Generation are placing the value on meaning, legacy and alignment.
Investors want to leave more than returns. They want impact with clarity.
Private markets are becoming the vehicle for long-term change.
The capital conversation is shifting from transactional to intentional.
These aren’t “emerging themes.” They are new baselines.
Gender lens investing doesn’t sit outside this movement. It sits at the centre because nothing tests your alignment like deciding what you fund, and who gets left behind.
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What Gender Lens Investing Actually Demands
A gender lens is not about “helping women.” It’s about seeing what has been mispriced and misunderstood. It’s about asking:
What if women’s health isn’t niche, but unmeasured?
What if “impact” is actually the first sign of long-term alpha?
What if this is the most undervalued frontier in healthcare today?
If that sounds like a thesis, not a charity pitch, Good. You are who we are writing for.
Case Study: DAMA Health and the Future of Hormonal Care
Now imagine a platform that can tell you which hormone therapy is likely to work for your body before the symptoms hit. That is what Elena Rueda Carrasco and Dr. Paulina Cecula are building with Dama Health.
While most femtech startups optimized for fertility tracking, Dama went for the harder, higher-stakes challenge: precision prescribing across the hormonal lifespan, from contraception to menopause.
And the data proves why it matters:
33% of women in their early pilots had been given contraceptives they were not medically suited for.
61% had reported major side effects from previously prescribed options. (Dama Health, 2025)
That’s not a better pill. That’s infrastructure repair.
Dama is now expanding into U.S. markets, integrating with primary care providers, and using real-world data to build proprietary clinical models.
They are not just building a company. They are rewriting how hormone therapy is delivered, validated, and covered.
Their approach reflects the kind of foresight increasingly valued by long-term investors.
This Isn’t Impact Investing. It is Infrastructure
So what keeps allocators from moving? Blind spots disguised as prudence.
“Too new.”
“Too niche.”
“Too hard to benchmark.”
But this isn’t about betting on a theme. It’s about correcting what markets have mispriced for decades. It’s about asking:
What are we not seeing?
Who built the models we use to evaluate risk?
And how do we build new ones that actually see value in care?
A gender lens isn’t soft. It’s surgical.
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Let’s stop calling it underfunded. Let’s call it what it is: A mispriced revolution.
I write weekly at FemmeHealth Ventures Alliance about capital, care, and the future of overlooked markets. If you are building, backing, or allocating in this space, I’d love to connect.
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References
PitchBook. (2024). 2024 US All In: Female Founders in the VC Ecosystem. Retrieved from https://pitchbook.com/news/reports/2024-us-all-in-female-founders-in-the-vc-ecosystem
McKinsey & Company. (2024). Closing the women’s health gap: A $1 trillion opportunity to improve lives and economies. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/mhi/our-insights/closing-the-womens-health-gap-a-1-trillion-dollar-opportunity-to-improve-lives-and-economies
Global Health 50/50. (2023). 2023 Report – Global Health 50/50. Retrieved from https://globalhealth5050.org/2023-report/
Faubion, S. S., et al. (2021). Impact of Menopause Symptoms on Women in the Workplace. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Retrieved from https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(23)00112-X/abstract
Hwang, S., et al. (2021). Sex Bias in Clinical Trials and the Impact on Women’s Health. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 20(5), 317–318. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00904-w
Dama Health. (2025, May). Quarterly Investor Update.
Olsen, T. (1978). Silences. New York: Delacorte Press.
Moylan, M. (1993). Tillie Olsen: A Study of the Short Fiction. Twayne Publishers.
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Disclaimer & Disclosure
This content is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, investment, legal, or medical advice, or an offer to buy or sell any securities. Opinions expressed are those of the author and may not reflect the views of affiliated organisations. Readers should seek professional advice tailored to their individual circumstances before making investment decisions. Investing involves risk, including potential loss of principal. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
