The tech industry and start-up company world are infamously male-dominated. This often means the designs of these technological solutions are catered toward men and don’t fully meet the needs of women. However, there are more and more start-up companies that are stepping up to fill the gaps that our current tech doesn’t.
1. Bloomer Tech
Inspired by Amelia Bloomer’s pantaloons which replaced corsets in the 1800s, founders Alicia Chong R., Aceil Halaby, and Monica Abarca started Bloomer Tech to provide personalized healthcare for women through bras that track heart rates, breathing, and other statistics. They aimed to help women improve their heart health as the symptoms of heart attacks and other cardiovascular diseases are based on statistics from men.
According to the founders, these statistics are easily accessible on one’s phone and shareable with one’s doctor to help with the early detection of diseases and can demonstrate the efficacy of certain therapies. Bloomer Tech understands that bras often serve different purposes, so they have adapted their tech to fit into different styles of bras including maternity and sports bras.
2. Calisto
Calisto is both a technological solution and an organization that spans college campuses and communities nationwide. Currently, Calisto is headed by Amanda Stewart, but it was created by Jess Ladd in 2011 to support sexual assault survivors by providing them with resources such as creating a record for themselves, reporting a Title IX case, listing various counseling services, or using the Calisto matching system.
Calisto’s matching system is a way to detect serial offenders of sexual assault through information such as an email, phone number, or social media account. If more than two survivors report the same offender, a “match” occurs and Calisto provides a “legal options counselor” for each survivor to explain the options that they can take.
Calisto also partners with student groups and community organizations nationwide to help support survivors of sexual assault, provide education on sexual assault, and increase awareness for the options that one can take after.
3. Spero
Plant-based options are quickly taking over the market, but they often come at high prices. Spero is aiming to change that with affordable seed-based dairy alternatives that save water and money.
Spero’s founder Phaedra Randolph hopes to make non-dairy products the norm and more affordable than diary products. According to their website, seeds are 7-8 times less expensive, grow 50-70 times faster than their nut counterparts, and use less water and air to farm, allowing for more scalable products.
Currently, they offer Sunflower Cream Cheese, Alternative Goat Cheese, and egg alternatives made from pepita seeds. For all of their products, they pride themselves on having 7 or fewer ingredients.
Modern Fertility was created after co-founder Afton Vechery was curious about her own fertility, but the tests provided were often costly and not easy to access without intentions of getting pregnant. She partnered with co-founder Carly Leahy to create Modern Fertility, a company that provides at-home fertility tests that one can take even if they are on birth control.
Fertility tests can cost over a thousand dollars and often require one to see a specialist, but Modern Fertility allows women to take a blood test in the comfort of their home for a tenth of that cost. Through the test, people with ovaries can see if they have fewer eggs than average, if menopause is occurring earlier or later than predicted, what egg freezing or IVF would look like, and how one’s general health in relation to their hormones. According to their website, Modern Fertility aims to give women and people who menstruate information about their fertility and provide options so they can plan.
5. Mamava
Founders Christine Dodson and Sacha Mayer aim to change the culture surrounding breastfeeding through Mamava. After breastfeeding and pumping milk in “borrowed spaces,” the founders wanted to provide solutions for mothers to access private designated breastfeeding spaces.
Mamava offers a free app that helps mothers locate these designated areas near them, and they offer pods and rooms for facilities to implement these spaces. Currently, Mamava is in all 50 states in the U.S., and their app lists other lactation spaces where parents can take pictures and review them.
Despite the industries they’re in, these five women-founded and women-led start-ups are taking the world by storm and trying to solve the issues that are often overlooked or forgotten about by society. However, these companies have garnered support, and they’re definitely something to keep an eye on.