Mother of the term Femtech + two kids. Co-founded Clue. Founder of Femtech Assembly, a think tank. On a quest to get the world continuous hormone monitoring. Travelled the world on motorcycle.
I don’t like what happened to Flo user’s data and I don’t like that investors still wanted to back Flo with hundred of millions of Euros… BUT I want men to be part of caring about women’s health. I want them as co-founders, investors and team members, building Femtech companies and products. And I want women to include men. To invite them. To educate them on what it feels like to have a female body and I want men to work on eye level with women. Let’s ask all genders of tech builders to behave ethically. To actually care about users. I understand the anger (as I read the post). But I believe the way forward is to build bridges between genders and figure out how to form diverse teams and build for the world - because female health is relevant to all, not only to women. Clue has always been build by diverse teams, with amazing women and men, doing it together. It is possible. It is healthy. And I think it is needed. #femtech
Investor & Content Creator | @ruffinmitchener (200K Followers) | Empowering Women in Tech, Startups, & Venture Capital
This guy secretly sold women’s most intimate health data to Meta & Google. Now they have to pay $60M in damages. His company, Flo Health, the period tracking App, founded, led, and funded by men was the first women’s health app to hit unicorn status… From 2016 to 2019, millions of women were using Flo to track periods, symptoms, and pregnancy plans—deeply personal information—meanwhile big tech was profiting off this data. The class action lawsuit was just settled — Google agreed to pay $52M and Flo $8M. And that really doesn’t feel like enough? Meta appealed and lost so now they’re going to court and could owe in the billions...but likely not with their legal team. This is a perfect example of just how broken venture capital is. A female founder would literally NEVER let this happen. Are we ok with men building, running, and profiting off women’s health? Women should be leading women’s health — but instead they’re shut out by investment committees dominated by white men... who according to Harvard research are 2X more likely to fund identical pitches delivered by men. So let’s amplify your female founded women’s health companies with a tag in the comments! Too many to name, but I’ll start here: adyn Perelel Hey Jane Midi Health Evvy Lume Health I'm building Brydge Club to get more women in check writing positions and more women funded, so WE can lead the next billion dollar women's health business.
Mmm….v rare that I disagree with you Ida Tin but…. Flo’s behaviour has been SO outrageously exploitative, their whole business model based on extracting value from women’s data WITHOUT explicit consent. They should be called out, the funding model IS broken, sometimes you can’t educate and you can’t work with people. Women have played nice and been inclusive for centuries…that has not made many men want to be our allies…. Time for a different playbook?
Agree Ida- in this case I think we need to separate the gender of the founder from the issue of data sharing. If we’re to solve women’s health for the benefit of human health then we need everyone involved and that means men leading and running women’s health companies too. There are plenty of incredible men ethically helping to close the gender health gap. We must encourage that. The issue at hand really is ethics, a willingness to really understand women’s health and a user-centred design.
Also "female founder would never let it happened" part There was a company called Theranos which done much worse with users health, how many people took wrong health decisions because of their tests? We should stop judging people by their innate characteristics and start judging them by their actions alone.
Well said Ida! We are deeply committed to this sector, and ready to support.
I don’t think it’s a Gender thing, it’s a thing of character. If a greedy woman gets a chance she might do same. Maybe privacy policy should actually be concise to readable lengths so people understand the heck they are signing up for too
I guess it’s time I delete Flo. Anyone have a more ethical alternative?
After you shared this info at an event I cancelled my Flo subscription and switched to Clue!
💯 agree - it has to be the way Ida Tin. Gender cannot be the arbiter of expectation on morally and ethically acceptable behaviours. We all need to rise, together.
The original post was hype, sure. But trying to hijack that hype to sound wiser just makes it worse. At least it ended on a good idea: let's support female-founded companies. Why does that instantly turn into "let's sideline men"? Can we really not hold two thoughts in our heads at once? Support women and work with men who get it. Let's keep our categories straight.
Senior Product Manager @ Google
1wThis is why privacy policies should be easy to access and understand. I recall not finding anything in Flo’s policy about protecting user data, which is why I personally chose not to download their app.