Women’s health and its start to build bosom pumps, period tracers, and other applications and equipment designed for women have collectively attracted to more than $ 5 billion in funding in the last five years, but the market is narrow, and now, two of the trailblazers in space are gathering together as a consolidation.
Willow, the beginning of San Francisco, who made his name with breast pumps, is buying Elvie, who began with a smart Kegel coach before expanding to other products for new mothers, including his breast pumps and more recently, a bassines.
The terms of the agreement have not been discovered, but we realize that it is coming as Elvie enters the administration. The beginning of London raised more than $ 186 million over the last 12 years with investors, including Octopus Ventures, Blackrock and Blume Equity, among other things. Its latest rating was $ 241 million for PitchBook data.
Companies have been in conversation for some time after Willow approached Elvie to buy it. But as the talks progressed, Elvie also approached the end of her runway.
“The transaction is taking shape after many months of alternative receptions,” said the CEO of Willow Sarah O’Leary in an interview.
We understand that Willow is taking over the existing business, including its products and team. There are currently 170 people working through London and Bristol, though some of them are already working on their announcements and will not come to Willow.
For its part, Willow has raised about $ 254 million in a combination of capital and debt with investors, including Nea and Meritech likes. His rating, for Pitchbook, had increased by up to $ 256 million in 2021 (a high filigree for enterprise funds in general), but had fallen in 2024 when the company set up a combination of capital and debt.
O’Leary, who entered the role of CEO at the end of 2023, refused to comment on its current rating, but said the company may seek to grow later this year.
Elvie’s bankruptcy’s advice speaks to some of the wider challenges in the women’s health world, which is estimated to be a $ 60 billion market this year, but has faced a number of heads. The market since 2021 has continued to be challenging for the beginnings of the later phase, especially those that have not focused almost on it. At the moment there is not much opportunity for women’s health businesses. Plus, as O’Leary points out, the market (seeing that $ 60 billion, no doubt) is flooded with an abundance of cheaper products.
The latest 23 -OR drama also highlights some of the major issues with user data management, especially health data, when things go wrong with business. And this is probably even more so with women’s health and reproductive businesses in the current political climate.
And, as always, the hardware – or at least the ability to turn the equipment into lucrative businesses – remains difficult.
Willow’s hope is that its purchase of Elvie marks the beginning of some wider consolidation and its own efforts of Willow to build a wider platform: if the output options are slim and far away, then make your platform and become the consolidator.
Women’s health as a category really rose over the years as it was made, thanks to the cloud, intelligent phones and innovations in the Big Data Analytics, the easiest applications to build to engage with the market, and the prototypes of hardware launched through crowd collection platforms to measure consumer interest. These products also emerged from a more empowered demographic technology required to meet their needs. Now the challenge of Willow – and the opportunity – will be to see if it can turn it into profit over time.
“We want to show that female products are not only excellent stories, but great businesses,” she said.
