The Book I Wish I’d Had: A Strategic Guide to Investing in Women’s Health Innovation
Why the smartest capital often misses the most lucrative healthcare opportunities and how investors can find alpha in women’s health, diagnostics, and overlooked markets.
This newsletter is 100% free. But it takes hours each week to research, write, and produce at this level. Here are 5 ways to support my work: 1. click “❤️” to amplify 2. subscribe 3. share this publication 4. buy me coffee 5. become a partner
📲 connect and collaborate with me here! email | LinkedIn | Instagram
It started with one conversation with one women’s health investor over dinner.
He had seen Gynesonics, a company revolutionizing fibroid treatment struggle to raise follow-on funding. Not because the innovation wasn’t real. Not because the science wasn’t sound. And not because the market was small; uterine fibroids affect 70–80% of women globally.
Not even because the regulatory path was unclear. They had CE Mark in Europe, FDA clearance in the US, and over $100 million in venture funding already committed.
They struggled because later-stage investors couldn’t see the opportunity.
“The science was solid,” he said, pausing. “The market need was massive. But somehow... the investors just couldn’t see it.”
That conversation stayed with me. It didn’t just explain why a single company stumbled. It unlocked a pattern I hadn’t been able to name. One I’d started to see everywhere.
The Pattern I Couldn’t Unsee
It wasn’t just Gynesonics.
Cardiometabolic health: Heart disease is the leading killer of women, yet sex-specific approaches to prevention remain underfunded.
Autoimmune conditions: Women represent 75% of patients, but diagnostic tools often ignore how symptoms show up in female bodies.
Maternal health: A trillion-dollar drain on global healthcare systems and yet the funding pipeline chokes again and again.
Every time, the pattern was identical: Breakthrough science. Massive unmet need. Regulatory clarity. And capital that couldn’t connect the dots.
It reminded me of earlier markets. Remember when SaaS was considered too obscure? Or when mobile apps were dismissed as a fad before the iPhone changed everything?
The most lucrative investment categories often hide in plain sight, overlooked until someone shifts the frame.
What I Wish Someone Had Told Me
Here’s what I didn’t understand at the start: The same forces that excluded women from medical research for decades created systematic blind spots in capital markets. When you omit half the population from clinical trials, you don’t just create knowledge gaps. You create pattern-recognition failures in how we evaluate opportunity.
Investors are trained to spot familiar signals. Signals built on decades of research that included their reference points. Signals that reflect problems they personally relate to.
But when a startup solves a problem that was invisible to traditional research, something that affects millions of women but lives outside legacy data, those same investors can’t read it.
It’s not always bias. Often, it’s information asymmetry masquerading as risk.
Where the Alpha Hides
That investor’s insight about Gynesonics didn’t just explain a stall. It revealed where the upside lives.
Because when Gynesonics finally broke through, scaling their tech, validating their thesis, and proving the ROI, it confirmed what I’d come to suspect: The greatest alpha often lives in the gap between real market need and institutional pattern recognition.
This isn’t about taking bigger risks. It’s about using better frameworks. It’s about realizing that cardiometabolic innovations, autoimmune diagnostics, and maternal health solutions aren’t niche.
They are strategically undervalued markets with the potential to reshape healthcare economics. The first investors who learn to see clearly will capture the most value.
The Book That Didn’t Exist
Every time I spoke to an investor curious about women’s health, I got the same question: “Where do I start?”
The case studies were scattered. The frameworks didn’t exist. And the mental models that worked in enterprise SaaS or fintech didn’t translate to this space. I kept thinking: Someone needs to write the book I wish I’d had at the beginning.
Not a manifesto but
A practical, strategic guide for evaluating these opportunities.
A roadmap for navigating regulatory risk, identifying high-signal founders, and understanding market dynamics most allocators still overlook.
A reframing of women’s health as what it actually is: A future-proof allocation in any long-term portfolio.
Because this isn’t about feel-good investing.
It’s about recognizing that 51% of the population represents the next wave of scale: in longevity, metabolic health, diagnostics, maternal care, and digitally native health systems.
Why It Matters Now
That conversation about Gynesonics happened years ago.
Since then, I have watched the market prove the thesis again and again. Startups solving real problems for the populations traditional healthcare ignored aren’t just getting traction. They are scaling. They are delivering returns. They are redefining what healthcare innovation looks like in a post-pipeline, precision-first world.
But most investors still don’t have the playbook. That’s what this book offers. For anyone, new or aspiring angels, investors, allocators, analysts, skeptics who wants to understand where healthcare is heading next, and how to be early in the right places.
Because capital shapes culture.
And this time, we get to write the terms.
👉 Join the waitlist for The Billion Dollar Blind Spot
👇 Join Our Network
Are you building or backing similarly credible, under-the-radar solutions in women’s health?
We want to hear from you. Reach out privately or reply to this post. FHV curates brands and breakthroughs that deserve broader attention in the women’s health ecosystem.
👋 Ready to Learn How to Invest?
This September, I am opening a new cohort of the Investor Readiness Program; a 6-week, immersive course for women who want to confidently invest in health innovation.
No jargon. No hedge fund background required. Just the desire to understand how capital shapes change.
❤️ Enjoying this? If this post sparked something for you, click the ❤️ at the bottom. It helps more than you know and tells me you're reading.
Coming in July 2025:
🎧 Blindspot Capital: The Podcast
Formerly FemmeHealth Founders, our podcast relaunches this summer under a sharper lens and a bolder name. Blindspot Capital explores the undercurrents shaping health innovation from the deals that stall to the systems that silence. This season, we speak to the people shifting what gets seen, funded, and scaled.Confirmed guests include:
💥 Ida Tin (Clue, FemTech Assembly) on founding the femtech category
🧠 Lisa Suennen (venture partner & healthtech strategist) on how institutional capital moves.We are also in conversation with voices from maternal science to global policy stay tuned as the full season drops.
👉 Subscribe to Blindspot Capital wherever you get your podcasts, or listen directly on Substack.
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.
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. At the time of writing, FHV Alliance does not have a financial relationship with Pharmalp.
