While still a small segment of the market, Switzerland’s startups and tech companies are creating products to address women’s needs
Before we deep dive into the Switzerland FemTech market, it is important to understand ‘what is FemTech’? At FemTech Analytics, a strategic analytical agency focused on the emerging FemTech sector and a subsidiary of UK-based consortium Deep Knowledge Group, we view FemTech as technology empowering women’s health and well-being. This term is often applied to products, services, applications and software, medical devices, telehealth, wearables, hardware, therapeutic drugs, vitamins and supplements, digital platforms, and consumer products designed to improve or support women’s health, including but not limited to those who identify as cisgender women and gender or sexual minority women. FemTech encompasses several sub-sectors such as Women’s Wellness, Menstrual Health, Reproductive Health & Contraception, Longevity, Pregnancy & Nursing, General Health Care, Mental Health, and Pelvic & Uterine Health Care.
The Rise of FemTech
The FemTech industry emerged nearly 10 years ago. However, a wide range of female health areas remain underserved. While Reproductive Health and Nursing have traditionally been the focus of FemTech businesses and investments, several other subsectors are gradually coming to the fore.
While FemTech still focuses mostly on traditional technology subsectors related to women’s health, the industry is expanding in scope to encompass other subsectors such as Longevity, another emerging field focused on healthy aging. By developing and advancing HealthTech and Longevity solutions, FemTech seeks to serve some of the most unmet healthcare needs of women.
The global FemTech Market Size accounted for $40.2 billion in 2020 and is projected to grow at an average CAGR of 13.3% from 2020 till 2026 to reach $75.7 billion. FemTech is becoming important because people are increasingly seeing the vital role women play in creating and sustaining healthy families. The fourth wave of feminism is making this concept even more pervasive. Women are now increasingly pushing for equality in all aspects of life, including the workplace and healthcare.
FemTech in Switzerland: Key Findings
A recent analytical case study of FemTech Analytics assembled and analyzed information about 85 organizations related to the Swiss FemTech market, including 33 companies, 15 nonprofits, and 37 investors considered by sectors, the research also shed light on key features, trends, industry innovations, technologies, market segmentation, and perspective.
Switzerland’s FemTech Industry comprises 9 subsectors, with Reproductive Health & Contraception and Pregnancy & Nursing sectors accounting for approximately 55%.
The number of FemTech companies has continued to rise, the largest region by FemTech companies is Northern Switzerland, with more than 55% of organizations located there. 14 companies are based in Zurich.
Kate Batz, director of FemTech Analytics comments “Switzerland demonstrates the rapid rise of startups dedicated to women’s health. FemTech is becoming a hot topic and a promising asset class for investors. With over 30 FemTech companies and prominent investment companies already in the market, Switzerland represents a good opportunity for further development.”
Challenges and Opportunities
In Switzerland, the FemTech market is underestimated. This leads to missing data sets and a lack of understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of gynecological conditions that impact the female population. However, Swiss FemTech is a burgeoning growth industry with a rapidly emerging public profile, diverse applications, growing investor attention, and an increasing share of capital infusion in healthcare. FemTech companies are addressing specific areas related to women’s health such as pregnancy and nursing, wellness, reproductive health and contraception, general health care, pelvic and uterine health care, longevity, mental health, and sexual and menstrual health.
Switzerland provides a promising landscape for investment in the FemTech sector. Most funding in Swiss FemTech companies came in the form of grants. Other forms of investment included IPO/post-IPO, seed/pre-seed, and venture capital. As an attractive market for investors, Switzerland accounted for 3% of FemTech market investments in Europe between 2015–2020.
However, women-led startups find it a challenge to raise capital given that most investors are men. The lack of understanding of female healthcare needs makes investing in female-related products an obstacle. There is a disconnect between how to launch a product helpful for women and finding the right business model that is attractive to investors. While menopause care is virtually non-existent, 55% of Switzerland-based FemTech companies address reproductive health and contraception, and pregnancy and nursing related issues.
Overall, FemTech in Switzerland is poised to grow, thanks to the country’s stable politics and economic policies. The Swiss market is advanced in both technological and structural aspects and it allows entry to new market players. Swiss companies and startups involved in FemTech have attracted the attention of investors such as VentureKick, a Swiss-based philanthropic entity focused on entrepreneurs coming from Swiss universities.
Future of FemTech Longevity in Switzerland
The gap between female Healthspan and women’s rising lifespans is increasing, creating an unmet need for products and services aiming to maximize healthy female lifespan that FemTech Longevity addresses. As a result, companies that once focused mainly on fertility issues are starting to turn their attention to a component of Longevity. The present state of regenerative medicine is also aiding this trend, and we expect more FemTech companies to follow suit.