Women’s health and its startups building connected breast pumps, period trackers, and other apps and hardware designed for women have collectively pulled in more than $5 billion in funding in the last five years, but the market is tight, and now, two of the trailblazers in the space are coming together as consolidation beckons.
Willow, the San Francisco startup that made its name with wearable breast pumps, is acquiring Elvie, which started with a smart Kegel trainer before expanding to other products for new mothers, including its own breast pumps and most recently, a bassinet.
Terms of the deal have not been disclosed but we understand that it’s coming as Elvie enters administration. The London startup raised more than $186 million over the last 12 years with investors, including Octopus Ventures, BlackRock, and Blume Equity, among others. Its last valuation was $241 million, per data from PitchBook.
The companies have been in conversation for some time, after Willow approached Elvie to buy it. But as talks progressed, Elvie also approached the end of its runway.
“The transaction is taking shape after many months of alternative expectations,” Willow CEO Sarah O’Leary said in an interview.
We understand Willow is taking on the existing business, including its products and team. There are currently 170 people working across London and Bristol, although some of those are already working out their notice periods and won’t be coming on to Willow.
For its part, Willow has raised around $254 million in a combination of equity and debt with investors, including the likes of NEA and Meritech. Its valuation, per PitchBook, had risen to as much as $256 million in 2021 (a high watermark for venture funding in general) but had dropped in 2024 when the company raised a combination of equity and debt.
O’Leary, who stepped into the CEO role at the end of 2023, declined to comment on its current valuation but said that the company may be looking to raise more later this year.
Elvie’s tip into bankruptcy speaks to some of the wider challenges in the world of women’s health, which is estimated to be a $60 billion market this year but has faced a number of headwinds. The market since 2021 has continued to be challenging for later-stage startups, especially those that are not focused almost solely on AI. There are not a lot of exit opportunities for women’s health businesses at the moment. Plus, as O’Leary points out, the market (eyeing that $60 billion figure, no doubt) has been flooded with a plethora of cheaper products.
The recent drama with 23andMe also highlights some of the big issues with managing user data, especially health data, when things go awry with the business. And that is perhaps even more the case with women’s health and reproductive businesses in the current political climate.
And, as ever, hardware — or at least the ability to turn hardware startups into profitable businesses — remains hard.
Willow’s hope is that its acquisition of Elvie marks the start of some wider consolidation and Willow’s own efforts to build out a wider platform: If exit opportunities are few and far between, then make your own platform and become the consolidator.
Women’s health as a category really arose over the years as it became, thanks to the cloud, smartphones and innovations in big data analytics, easier-to-build apps to engage with the market, and hardware prototypes launched via crowdfunding platforms to gauge consumer interest. These products also came out of a more empowered demographic demanding tech to meeting their own needs. Now Willow’s challenge — and opportunity — will be to see if it can convert that into profit over time.
“We want to show that femtech products are not only great stories, but great businesses,” she said.
