Flo app by OWHealth
Menstrual cycle trackers tend to get mixed reviews about their accuracy but that hasn’t had much impact on the popularity of these women’s health apps. Claiming it has reached a milestone of 10 million monthly active users, OWHealth, which developed Flo, closed a $5 million Series A round to expand its foothold in the U.S. market and support product development.
Flint Capital led the funding round along with Haxus Fund. One notable angel investor who took part in the round is supermodel Natalia Vodianova. The investment marked her first in a healthcare startup, a spokeswoman confirmed in an email. Vodianova will take part in Flo’s campaign to to increase awareness and get young women to feel more comfortable talking about their sexual health.
Flo has evolved in the past year from a period tracker to include more information on ovulation and personal health insights based on the data users punch into the app, a spokeswoman for the company noted in an email. The company has also rolled out a private community for its app users where they can discuss health-related concerns with experts and other users.
Natalia Vodianova
The healthcare startup also plans to partner with medical research institutions and universities to advance female health science, the spokeswoman noted.
“The company’s ultimate ambition is to become the number one female health platform in the world, with at least 100 million users,” she said.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
With her investment in OWHealth, Vodianova joins a growing list of celebrity angel investors.
Who are the celebrity healthcare investors?
Nasir “Nas” Jones is a hip hop artist, entrepreneur, and investor who founded Queensbridge Venture Partners. It backed PillPack, which seeks to disrupt the pharmacy space and make simplify multiple medication prescriptions.
Actor Patrick Dempsey invested in Crowdmed, which uses a combination of crowdsourcing and medical expertise and technology to solve complex medical cases.
Actor Jared Leto invested in Zenefits.
Crooner Lionel Richie backed house call-on-demand service Heal, which recently expanded from the West Coast to Washington D.C.
Olympian Jackie Joyner-Kersee invested in Fitly, which developed a Smart Plate with an eye to helping users with weight management, portion control and managing Type 2 diabetes.
Mark Cuban of ABC’s Shark Tank and the owner of Dallas Mavericks owner has a clutch of healthcare startups in his portfolio such as smartphone-enabled diagnostics business Biomeme;, Internet of Things infrastructure business Validic;, Healthcare Revenue Solutions; Genetesis — which gives physicians 3D visualization tool for physicians; and more recently, Denver-based clinical decision support health IT business Matrix Analytics.
