Happy fourth birthday, Avestria!
A look at the whos, whats, and whys of Avestria Ventures
On July 9, 2019, Avestria made its first close of its first fund. We celebrate this “birthday” every year through a special blog post. This year’s highlights who we are, why we invest, what investments we’ve made, and what we’d like to see next.
Who we are:
Avestria is a 100% female-owned and female-run venture capital firm that invests in women’s health and female-led life science companies.
Why we invest:
Venture capital remains a men’s game. Only about 1% of all VC investments in healthcare go to women’s health according to PitchBook Data and only 1.9% of all VC investments went to female founders last year.
In contrast, 58% of Avestria’s portfolio companies address women’s health issues and 89% have female founders and/or CEOs.
What (investments we’ve made)
Alydia Health (acquired by Organon) developed the Jada System to control postpartum hemorrhaging: the top cause of maternal mortality.
AmplifiDx is developing the DX 1000: a point-of-care platform for rapid detection of infectious diseases that aims to provide PCR-level sensitivity — and, thus, highly accurate results — in less than an hour.
Antiva Biosciences is developing topical therapeutics to treat diseases caused by human papillomavirus (HPV), starting with pre-cancerous lesions on the cervix (also known cervical intraepithelial neoplasia or CIN).
AOA Dx is developing AKRIVIS GD™: a blood-based test that analyzes tumor marker gangliosides for early detection of ovarian cancer.
Avation Medical is utilizing wearable electrical stimulation. Its first product, the Vivally® System, helps treat overactive bladder syndrome and urinary urge incontinence.
Candesant Biomedical has developed Brella™, a non-invasive, topical patch to help treat hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating) within three minutes.
Curio is developing women’s health-focused digital therapeutics. Its first suite of tools, MamaLift™, focuses on postpartum depression.
Dahlia Biosciences is leveraging the power of CRISPR-Cas9 to enable cell-based RNA detection tools for research and diagnostics.
Elucent Medical has developed tools and tracking systems to help surgeons mark, find, and remove impalpable, potentially pre-cancerous lesions, such as in the breast and lungs.
ENB Therapeutics is developing small molecule therapeutics to increase both the effective rate of current immunotherapy cancer treatments and the number of T- and B- cells in the body to fight cancer.
Genome Medical is the country’s largest tele-genetic counseling provider, offering its Genome Care Delivery™ platform, clinical network, and expertise across six specialties: cardiovascular, oncology, health screening, reproductive health, pediatrics, and pharmacogenomics.
Knowledge 2 Practice (K2P) is an online healthcare education provider, allowing physicians to improve their knowledge — for both board reviews and continuing education — and quality of care while saving time and costs.
Madorra is developing a non-invasive, non-hormonal device to treat vaginal dryness.
Mae offers a digital care marketplace that connects expectant mothers, starting with Black mothers, with culturally competent and critical resources throughout pregnancy, labor, and postpartum.
Midi offers a telehealth platform for women in midlife or older, especially those in perimenopause, menopause, or post-menopause.
Raydiant Oximetry is developing a fetal oximeter to determine whether a fetus is in distress during labor and an emergency C-section is medically necessary.
Rhinostics offers biological specimen collection tools that reduce labor costs, error rates, sample contamination, and manual time spent on processing and analysis.
Uqora (acquired by Pharmavite) offers urinary health products, including those to help treat and prevent UTIs.
ViuHealth (formerly known as DrugViu) is a virtual care app, providing access to experts and other resources for individuals with autoimmune diseases.
What (milestones our companies have hit recently):
Both Avation and Candesant received FDA clearances for their respective first products.
Antiva announced a $53 million Series E while Candesant announced a $35M Series B.
Curio, Midi, Mae, and ViuHealth announced partnerships, such as with insurance companies, to further the reach of their services
For our two exited companies, Alydia’s Jada System demonstrated its safety and high effectiveness in a real-world study while Uqora recently started offering its products in stores (rather than online only).
What (is next):
Women’s health and female leadership in healthcare have been making headlines recently.
Politically, the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 brought women’s reproductive health and rights back into (political) conversations. The 30th anniversary of the NIH Revitalization Act in 2023 reiterated how healthcare products have been historically tested on white men, not women and/or minorities.
Culturally, women’s health issues are losing their taboo; Oprah and The New York Times have both covered menopause recently. The New York Times, in additio to its our stories about menopause, has also published articles about breastfeeding, the clitoris, endometriosis, and postpartum depression.
Financially, major acquisitions (such as nVision by Boston Scientific, KaNDy Therapeutics by Bayer, Alydia Health by Organon, and Uqora by Pharmavite) have shown that major market players see the value in pursuing women’s health companies. Women-led health companies are also seeing successes: Maven Clinic became the first digital health unicorn focused on women’s health while Elvie, Kindbody and Tia had some of the largest fundraising rounds for women’s health companies ever.
Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum estimates that a $300 million investment into women-focused research could lead to a $13 billion economic return along with “reduced healthcare costs, better quality of life and years of productivity returned to the global workforce”. At Avestria, we hope that these goals can be achieved — and are proud to have spent the last four years doing what we can to help.
