Why Women’s Health Gets Just Two Percent of VC Funding And What We Are Doing About It

Women drive most healthcare decisions and spending, yet companies focused on women’s health still receive only a small fraction of venture capital. This blog looks at why that gap exists, where the real market opportunities are, and how Portfolia’s women’s health funds are working to change the numbers for both outcomes and returns.

Why Does Women’s Health Receive Only Two Percent of VC Funding?

The number is stark. Women’s health companies receive roughly two percent of all healthcare venture capital, according to the Silicon Valley Bank Twenty Twenty Five Innovation in Women’s Health Report.

That two percent reflects funding for companies addressing conditions that are unique to women, more prevalent in women, or that present differently in women, including fertility, menopause, maternal health, gynecologic cancers, endometriosis, and cardiovascular disease in female patients.

When researchers isolate healthcare VC and ask how much goes to solving problems that predominantly affect half the population, the answer still hovers near two percent.

At the same time:

• Women make approximately eighty percent of household healthcare decisions
• Women account for more than half of all healthcare spending in the United States
• Women spend about twenty five percent more of their lives in poor health than men, according to the McKinsey Health Institute

By any measure of market size, demand, or unmet need, women’s health should command a far larger share of innovation capital. Yet the funding gap persists, slowing progress across every major condition category, from fertility technologies that could reduce the physical and emotional burden of IVF, to menopause solutions for more than one billion women worldwide, to diagnostic tools that catch cardiovascular disease earlier in women with atypical symptoms.

Without adequate funding:

• Promising research stalls in academic labs instead of advancing to clinical trials
• Entrepreneurs with breakthrough ideas struggle to find investors who understand the market
• Healthcare providers lack the tools they need to deliver better outcomes for female patients

Women continue to wait longer for diagnoses, receive fewer treatment options, and experience worse health outcomes than the science should allow.

Why Has Women’s Health Been Underfunded For So Long?

For most of medical history, women’s health was defined narrowly as reproductive health. Fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth were treated as the primary categories. Everything else was studied in male bodies and assumed to apply equally to women.

Until nineteen ninety three, federally funded clinical research in the United States was not required to include women. That created decades of data gaps that researchers are still working to fill.

One consequence is clear. A Government Accountability Office audit found that eight of the ten drugs withdrawn from the United States market between nineteen ninety seven and two thousand one posed greater health risks for women than for men. Those drugs had been tested primarily in male populations.

Taboos and stigma have also played a role. Conditions like endometriosis, menopause symptoms, and pelvic floor disorders were rarely discussed openly. That made it harder for entrepreneurs to pitch solutions and for investors to see the market opportunity.

Even today:

• The average woman with endometriosis still consults seven clinicians over seven to ten years before receiving an accurate diagnosis
• Many menopause symptoms are normalized or dismissed rather than treated
• Pelvic pain and menstrual pain are often labeled as stress or anxiety rather than investigated

The composition of venture capital decision makers has reinforced these blind spots. According to PitchBook’s Twenty Twenty Four analysis, women hold only about seventeen percent of decision making roles at VC firms with more than fifty million dollars in assets under management.

Research shows that:

• VC firms with at least one female partner are more than twice as likely to invest in female founded companies
• Female founders are disproportionately likely to build companies addressing women’s health needs

When the people writing checks have not personally experienced painful periods, fertility struggles, or menopausal symptoms, women’s health is more likely to be perceived as a niche market rather than a major economic category hiding in plain sight.

Where Is The Market Opportunity Inside The Women’s Health Funding Gap?

The McKinsey Health Institute and World Economic Forum estimate that addressing the women's health gap represents a six hundred billion dollar-plus global market opportunity, with potential to generate one trillion dollars in annual economic impact by 2040. This is not a projection based on wishful thinking; it reflects the measurable costs of untreated conditions, lost productivity, and inefficient healthcare spending that better solutions could address.

Several high-growth segments remain dramatically underinvested relative to their market potential. Endometriosis affects approximately ten percent of reproductive-age women globally, yet only around twenty drugs are in development worldwide compared to hundreds for conditions like diabetes. The estimated U.S. economic burden of endometriosis reaches seventy-eight to one hundred nineteen billion dollars annually when accounting for both direct medical costs and productivity losses. Menopause solutions represent another massive opportunity: the global market for menopause treatments is projected at one hundred twenty to two hundred thirty billion dollars, yet only one in five OB-GYNs report receiving formal menopause training and fifty-eight percent of medical textbooks contain no mention of the topic.

Osteoporosis affects eighty percent of the ten million Americans with the condition, and one in two women over fifty will experience an osteoporosis-related fracture—yet screening and treatment remain woefully inadequate. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women, but women are still less likely than men to receive specialist care, certain treatments, and timely diagnoses when they present with cardiac symptoms. These are not small markets waiting for demand to materialize; they are established, urgent needs waiting for adequate supply.

Solving the funding gap creates both financial upside and measurable health gains. Companies that develop better diagnostic tools, treatment options, and care delivery models for women's health can capture significant market share in underserved categories while generating the kind of outcomes data that attracts payers, employers, and health systems. The economic case and the impact case align.

How Is Portfolia Changing The Way Women’s Health Gets Funded?

Portfolia was founded on a simple premise: if the traditional venture capital model systematically underfunds women's health, then changing what gets funded requires changing who does the funding. Rather than waiting for conventional VC firms to recognize the opportunity, Portfolia built a community-based venture model that brings together investors who understand women's health firsthand—because they have lived it.

Today, Portfolia's community includes nearly two thousand members across fifteen funds and more than one hundred sixty-five total investments. Our Women's Health Funds specifically target innovations that address conditions across every stage of women's lives, from fertility and pregnancy through menopause and aging. As the most active investor in women's health globally, with over one hundred investments in forty-six portfolio companies, Portfolia has demonstrated that a different kind of investor base produces a different kind of deal flow.

The model works because it changes incentives at every level. Founders building women's health companies gain access to investors who grasp the problem they are solving without requiring extensive education on market basics. Investors gain access to deals that may never reach traditional VC firms because the founders have found a community that believes in their work from the first meeting. And portfolio companies benefit from a cap table that includes people who will advocate for their products, test their solutions, and provide the kind of user insight that accelerates product-market fit.

What Has Portfolia Already Proven Through Our Women’s Health Investments?

Portfolia's track record demonstrates that early conviction in women's health can generate category-defining returns. Maven Clinic, which Portfolia backed, has become the world's largest virtual clinic for women's and family health, reaching a valuation of 1.7 billion dollars with more than four hundred twenty-five million dollars raised. Maven now serves approximately seventeen million lives through contracts with health plans and major employers, proving that women's health platforms can achieve massive scale. Everly Health, another portfolio company, pioneered at-home health testing with particular strength in women's health categories and has raised over three hundred million dollars.

Beyond headline valuations, Portfolia has backed companies advancing breakthrough science. Gameto is engineering ovarian cells outside the body to transform IVF, potentially cutting weeks of hormone injections down to days; its lead program Fertilo has received FDA tentative approval for Phase 3 trials. YourChoice Therapeutics is developing the first non-hormonal male birth control pill, creating real partnership in contraception. Osteoboost Health is addressing the massive osteoporosis market with innovative approaches to bone density preservation.

These investments validate the women's health thesis at multiple levels: that the market is real, that scalable solutions can be built, that exits are achievable, and that early backers can generate meaningful returns while driving measurable health impact. For investors evaluating the category, Portfolia's track record offers concrete evidence that women's health is not a niche bet but a structural opportunity.

What Needs To Change In Venture Capital To Close The Women’s Health Funding Gap?

Closing the two percent gap requires specific shifts in how venture capital defines categories, evaluates risk, and builds teams.

Women’s Health As A Core Healthcare Category

Women’s health is not limited to fertility and pregnancy. It is a horizontal lens across the entire healthcare system that includes:

• Conditions that affect women exclusively
• Conditions that affect women differently than men
• Conditions that affect women disproportionately

Fund managers who view women’s health as a small vertical will continue to miss the larger opportunity.

Who Sits At The Investment Table

More women partners and more diverse investment committees lead to better recognition of women’s health opportunities.

The data shows:

• Firms with female partners are significantly more likely to invest in female founded companies
• Female founders are more likely to build women’s health companies

This is not about quotas. It is about pattern recognition. When everyone around the table has had similar life experiences, entire categories stay invisible.

The Role Of Limited Partners

Limited partners have real power to accelerate change.

• Nearly half of institutional LPs now ask about diversity metrics during due diligence
• A growing number of public pension funds have formal diversity requirements for managers

When LPs explicitly request exposure to women’s health in their venture allocations, they create clear incentives for fund managers to build expertise in the category.

How Can Investors Partner With Portfolia To Move Beyond The Two Percent?

Portfolia’s women’s health funds are open to accredited investors and qualified purchasers who want exposure to this growth market while backing companies that are closing the health gap for women.

Our model offers:

• Access to curated women’s health venture investments
• Education on the asset class and the women’s health opportunity
• Direct engagement with founders and other investors through our community format

For newer investors, we provide context on venture investing and women’s health markets. For experienced investors and family offices, we offer a way to align capital with both performance and impact in a category that has been consistently underfunded.

The two percent figure is not fixed. It reflects past choices. Different choices can move that number.

Every investment in a women’s health company:

• Expands the evidence that the category is investable at scale
• Supports founders building solutions for conditions that have been ignored
• Sends a signal to the broader market that women’s health is a structural opportunity, not a side bet

To learn more about Portfolia’s women’s health funds and our investing community, you can connect with our investor relations team and explore how to participate in the next wave of women’s health innovation.

Sources

• Silicon Valley Bank, Twenty Twenty Five Innovation in Women’s Health Report
• McKinsey Health Institute and World Economic Forum, Closing the Women’s Health Gap, January Twenty Twenty FourPitchBook,
• All In: Female Founders in the VC Ecosystem, Twenty Twenty Four
• U S Government Accountability Office, Drug Safety Report GAO Zero One Two Eight Six R, Two Thousand One
• Maven Clinic company announcements and filings, Twenty Twenty Four
• Everly Health funding data, Twenty Twenty One to Twenty Twenty Four
• Portfolia portfolio and fund data, Twenty Twenty Four to Twenty Twenty Five