Jenny Button first considered Emm through the COVID lockdown. She was utilizing an Oura ring and the Whoop monitoring band and getting insights about her physique, however there wasn’t a tool that might present knowledge about one of the vital necessary features — reproductive and menstrual well being.
“It appeared loopy to me, as a result of these are issues that each lady desires to have the ability to observe and higher perceive,” she informed TechCrunch. She thought to herself: Why not make a wearable system that may inform somebody extra about their reproductive well being? She penned a letter to one of many engineers at Dyson, made a connection, and began testing the concept.
“5 years later, following hundreds of designs and iterations and prolonged person testing, we’ve revealed the world’s first good menstrual cup,” stated Button.
The UK-based firm has additionally raised a $9 million (£6.8 million) seed spherical, one led by Lunar Ventures because it prepares to formally launch its product subsequent 12 months.
The product features like a daily menstrual cup — designed to retailer interval blood relatively than take in it. However Emm’s medical-grade silicone is “fitted with ultra-thin, superior sensor know-how.” This sensor gathers knowledge that may assist customers perceive patterns about their cycles. Button hopes that it may “remodel the analysis, analysis and therapy of menstrual and reproductive well being situations.”
She isn’t the one one who thinks this manner. Different femtech founders informed The Guardian just a few months in the past that menstrual blood was an “missed alternative in ladies’s well being” that might provide insights not obtainable from well being assessments based mostly on circulatory blood.
It may, as an example, assist diagnose painful and typically misdiagnosed medical situations like endometriosis.
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“One in ten ladies in the present day undergo from endometriosis,” Button stated. “A situation that, like many others in reproductive well being, takes a median of seven to 10 years to diagnose.”
That delay “is largely due to the shortage of significant knowledge and poor characterization of menstrual well being in scientific settings,” Button believes. “There have been no dependable instruments to precisely and objectively observe that side of well being till now.”
Past endometriosis, she added that one in three ladies experiences “extreme reproductive well being points” all through their lives.
Knowledge gathered from the Emm app is encrypted and saved securely, with two-factor authentication. “It’s additionally all the time anonymized or pseudonymized,” which means private identifiers are eliminated or changed with codes, “and can solely be accessed by the folks at Emm who genuinely want it,” she stated.
Button used the phrase “strategic” to explain her funding spherical and stated she linked together with her lead investor via her community. Others within the spherical embrace Alumni Ventures (who backed Oura), Alumni Ventures, and BlueLion World. Cash might be used to launch the product into the UK market subsequent 12 months, she stated, including that the waitlist has already topped 30,000 pre-orders.
Capital will even be used for analysis and growth. Button hopes to enter the U.S. market in early 2027.
“Menstrual well being is barely the leaping off level for Emm,” stated Button. “In the end, I consider we could have a profound impression on ladies’s well being extra broadly,” she continued, including she hopes to increase the product sooner or later, maybe into analysis, different digital care instruments, and even therapeutics.
“Our mission is to speed up analysis, equip folks with the info to advocate for themselves, and finally assist them take management of their very own our bodies and well being journeys,” she stated.
