This renewed focus comes against the backdrop of stark and well-documented health inequalities. Women spend more years in ill health than men, and outcomes vary significantly depending on socioeconomic background and ethnicity. Digital innovation is now firmly positioned as a key part of the solution to tackling these entrenched health disparities.
The £1.5 million FemTech challenge fund is significant in what it represents. The NHS has committed to accelerating the deployment and spread of solutions that benefit women’s health. Importantly, this funding is designed to flow through NHS systems, enabling them to work directly with promising FemTech entrepreneurs and embed innovation into real-world service delivery.
For FemTech companies, NHS engagement offers clear advantages such as validation, access to real-world data and a route towards scale that is difficult to achieve independently.
Opportunity v Growth
The growth potential of FemTech has been highlighted repeatedly in recent years. PwC has estimated that the global women’s health market could reach $600 billion by 2030, even without significant intervention. Despite this, FemTech companies continue to face challenges when it comes to growth and scale and the sector still receives only a small proportion of overall digital health investment.
A range of factors contribute to this. Female-founded startups continue to receive a disproportionately small share of venture capital and investor familiarity with women’s health issues remains limited. There is also a persistent challenge around evidencing safety, effectiveness and outcomes, as the data investors expect is frequently unavailable and funding is required to generate it. Regulatory complexity is a key challenge for FemTech, as products often sit between consumer wellness tools and regulated medical devices. Uncertainty around whether a product meets the legal definition of a medical device can complicate classification and routes to market. Where regulation applies, increased scrutiny, longer approval timelines and higher costs can deter investment. While the FemTech Healthcare Challenge funding may help to overcome some adoption barriers and speed up access to the healthcare market, FemTech companies must be investment-ready from the outset and prepared to scale as opportunities arise.
How to prepare for investment and scale
As capital begins to flow more meaningfully into women’s health, legal and structural readiness can be a key differentiator. There are several practical steps FemTech businesses can take to improve their investment position and improve their chances of successful scale-up:
1. Be clear on regulatory classification early
Understanding whether a product is a consumer device or a medical device has significant implications for development timelines, compliance costs and routes to market. Early regulatory analysis reduces uncertainty and reassures investors that risks are understood and managed.
2. Build data governance and compliance into product design
With increasing reliance on sensitive data, particularly through NHS collaborations, robust data protection, consent and governance frameworks are essential. Demonstrating compliance with data protection and health research requirements builds trust with both investors and public sector partners.
3. Protect and structure intellectual property carefully
As businesses engage with grants, accelerators and NHS partners, questions around IP ownership and use become critical. Clear IP strategies, including how improvements and datasets are treated, can prevent issues later and strengthen company valuations.
4. Plan for NHS contracting and procurement realities
Public sector contracts bring different risk profiles, liability provisions and governance expectations. Preparing for these early increases familiarity and may help shorten routes to market.
5. Align legal strategy with scale and exit ambitions
Ultimately, investors want to see scale. Legal structures, corporate governance and commercial arrangements should support growth, international expansion and future fundraising or exit strategies.
Looking ahead
The renewed Women’s Health Strategy and the NHS FemTech funding initiative represent an important moment for the sector. They acknowledge both the scale of the opportunity and the need to translate innovation into real-world impact.
FemTech companies that combine strong innovation with legal, regulatory and structural readiness will be best placed to capitalise on this momentum. As adoption barriers fall and awareness grows, those prepared to meet investor and NHS expectations will gain a lasting competitive advantage.
