Postpartum Isn’t a Niche. It’s Infrastructure
What allocators get wrong about women’s health, and where the next returns will come from
The “impact” label sounds good but for women’s health start-ups, it can quietly cap capital, compress returns, and stall scale. Here is what investors and allocators need to rethink.
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When Praise Becomes a Constraint
There is a word that sounds like a compliment but often acts like a ceiling: impact.
It shows up in pitch decks, in founder bios, in grant applications. It’s what gets whispered when investors want to politely decline a women’s health deal.
“It’s amazing work” they’ll say. “But we are not really an impact fund.”
The problem isn’t the intention behind the word. It’s how it’s used to signal a different set of rules. A different threshold for capital. A softer expectation for return.
In theory, impact investing was meant to blend market logic with moral clarity. In practice, it too often becomes a corner we’re asked to stand in.
Grateful for scraps. Measured by anecdotes. Expected to be okay with less.
Especially if you’re building in women’s health.
Postpartum Isn’t a Perk. It’s a Systemic Gap.
When Astrid Gyllenkrok Kristensen launched LEIA Health, she wasn’t trying to create a nice-to-have app. She was addressing one of the biggest blind spots in healthcare: postpartum recovery.
Everyone celebrates the birth. No one funds the after.
LEIA steps into that silence offering structured, evidence-based care in the months after childbirth. Physical recovery, emotional regulation, pelvic health, mental wellbeing. Not just for the crisis moments, but for the whole arc of reintegration into your body and your life.
This is infrastructure not wellness.
The kind that could reduce downstream costs, improve maternal outcomes, and restore a sense of sovereignty to women navigating the most physically and psychologically intense transition of their lives.
But when Astrid goes out to raise, one of the frames she’s handed is “impact.”
That frame might get you through the first door. But it rarely gets you a seat at the table with the institutional capital that shapes outcomes and stays the course. It attracts aligned capital, yes, but too often it also invites compromise: lower return expectations, fewer resources, and funders who conflate good intentions with sufficient due diligence.
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When Capital Moves, Who Gets Taken Seriously?
We don’t call insulin start-ups impact. Or wearables that track VO₂ max. Or tech that helps men preserve fertility before cancer treatment. Those are just healthcare.
But postpartum care? Hormone mapping? Cervical screening? Suddenly we are in the land of soft capital and philanthropic cheerleading.
It is not because the business models are weaker. Often they are stronger; better retention, higher adherence, more engaged users. It’s that the category still carries a perception problem.
And the “impact” label?
Instead of challenging that bias, too often reinforces it.
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Impact Should Be the Floor, Not the Ceiling
I don’t want to erase the word impact. But I do want to interrogate what we’re really saying when we use it.
If we believe in women’s health as a category, we can’t keep treating it like a side project. We need capital that shows up with rigor, stays through the slow clinical milestones, asks the hard questions, and still says: this matters.
That’s the capital I am building toward. Strategic, long-term, unafraid to back real change.
Because impact should be the floor not the ceiling.
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.
📌ICYMI - Reading the Signals Before the Headlines
Last week, the FDA approved the Teal Wand, a breakthrough device for at-home cervical sampling. CNBC covered the story in detail highlighting not only the clinical data, but also the regulatory significance and potential for shifting long-standing barriers in women’s health.
It was a great mainstream coverage. And while that article explained what happened, it didn’t speak to the capital story unfolding underneath:
➡️ the market signals this approval sends
➡️ the precedent it sets for reimbursement models
➡️ or how it reshapes investor timelines in diagnostics.
If you passed on a company like Teal Health a year ago because it “felt early” or “wasn’t venture-backable”, you are probably not alone. But you might also be watching that same company reshape a category today.
That’s exactly why I write Signal Not Noise. So you can see these shifts before the funding rounds, the conference panels, and the strategy decks catch up. If you are rethinking how your capital sees the next wave of health innovation, start here. 👇
Signal Not Noise: What Mattered in Women’s Health Investing (May 4–May 10)
This week’s signals reveal a new threshold: regulatory approvals, funding rounds, and product-market fits that move women's health innovation beyond pitch decks and into real-world delivery.
👉 ICYMI - Our Latest Publications
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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.
Wow I love this reframing of women’s health as infrastructure — it’s so simple and so, so powerful.
It also really highlights how women’s health and healthcare is seen as extra and doing good, not a core need for our society.