Women’s health specialist, The Well HQ, has secured 'sweat equity' backing from Priya Oberoi, founder of venture capitalists, Goddess Gaia Ventures, who will take on a senior advisory role with the business.

Oberoi will work with the top team at The Well HQ to enable them to prepare to scale the business via a tech platform that will help sports support their greatest assets – their people – with health, wellbeing and performance.

Oberoi has been in private equity for decades and is now building a £100 million venture fund to invest in women’s health, wellness and femtech start ups. This is the only fund in Europe targeted at women and has five core pillars: women’s fertility, women’s cancer, women’s wellness, women’s chronic diseases and femtech products and services.

Co-founder of The Well HQ, Baz Moffatt, will be speaking at the HCM Summit in London on 24 October. She says Oberoi’s involvement is validating and it’s also business: “To date women’s health has been hugely under-funded and under-researched. As a result it’s an untapped market. How untapped? About US$1 trillion untapped.

"Priya is also entrepreneur in residence at Google and has contacts that can help us scale," said Moffat.

McKinsey’s Future of Wellness survey identified women’s health as being one of seven areas of growth in the wellness space, with purchases of women’s health products on the increase across a range of care needs. The highest number of respondents purchased menstrual-care and sexual-health products and the most was spent on menopause and pregnancy-related products in the past year.

Moffatt says there's huge potential for growth: “Women’s health and wellbeing and elite athletic performance are both on the up and sport is their intersection. Sport is also the key to unlocking their potential as commercial entities, and as vehicles for change.

“Inside sport, emphasising female health demonstrably improves the health and wellbeing of athletes and – best of all – it boosts athletic performance. Female athletes who train with the right combination of knowledge and kit, coaching and culture excel. They hit max. They perform. They win.

“Winners attract investment and investment powers winners. The commercial case is already there and one day (in the not-too-distant future), female health education will be standard fare in every sporting system.

Speaking to Linkedin, Oberoi said: “The VC industry has historically been dominated by white, middle class men, who typically invest in companies and products they know and can relate to. Women’s healthcare is a US$1 trillion market that has been untouched by traditional investors, or if it has it’s an outlier in many funds’ portfolios. Hopefully as the VC industry becomes more diverse we will see more investments in the sector.

“As a two-time cancer survivor, I know first-hand the challenges women face and I am passionate about building a fund that delivers significant returns for investors, founders and the women set to benefit from the new products and services brought to market.”

ENDNOTE
McKinsey’s partner, Eric Falardeau, will also be speaking at the all-keynote HCM Summit, book your early bird ticket here.