Melissa Wallace thought she was onto something good. Noting the discrepancy of funding between female and male company founders, she and a group of women started a nonprofit in 2019 to connect female founders with great ideas with investors to help launch the women’s companies.
"We were doing anything we could to get them across that initial hurdle," she told the audience at a CureTuesday Talk in August 2024. "We were trying to have an impact, but nothing was happening. We thought about the different ways that we might approach what we were doing a little bit differently, and we immediately realized we have to be in FemTech — especially considering that 80 percent of FemTech founders are female."
So, in 2023, Wallace launched Fierce Foundry, which aims to build companies that not only improve the lives of women, but create a new investment flywheel for female founders.
What Is FemTech?
FemTech is a recently coined term describing technology that supports the health and wellness of women and the people in their lives. "It doesn't necessarily mean a medical product per se," Wallace noted. "It could be an investment tool because women think about investing differently, or maybe because they haven't been educated about long-term investments in the same way men have."
When asked what impact she expects FemTech to have on women's health in the near future, Wallace takes a step back. It was relatively recently — just over 30 years ago — that the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993 mandated that clinical research funded by the NIH include women and underrepresented populations.
"You say near future, and I see small steps. The near future is about awareness, with female founders telling everybody what their new product is and why they have developed it," Wallace explained.
Four Stages to Success
Fierce Foundry co-founds new companies with capital investment plus services to ensure success at every stage, using a four-stage "studio model":
Stage 1 is ideation and analysis, which involves assessing ideas and determining what's worth moving on to the next stage.
Stage 2 is beta development and market fit to build a prototype, test it with customers and perform a product market fit. Successful minimum viable products (MVPs) move on to the next stage.
Stage 3 involves building the full product and going to market, with resources placed behind marketing, sales and scaled up product manufacturing.
Stage 4 involves preparing the company and the founder for exit.
"In some cases, the founder might want to take that company and continue to scale, and we will work with them on that," said Wallace. "But the idea is to get them to exit so they can go on to invest in more women."
Advice for Female Entrepreneurs
Examples of FemTech products created by female founders that Fierce Foundry is working on include a supportive AI tool for people with dementia and their families, as well as a monitoring tool for women dealing with chronic urinary tract infections. Fierce Foundry co-founds the companies and receives a percentage of equity in each one, with the goal of launching three to five companies a year.
"Our model is different because we want these women to be making money. We want them to be heavily invested in every part of what we're doing," Wallace contended.
She has three nuggets of advice for female product developers looking to launch new companies and ideas. "The first thing is to believe in yourself. Don't let the voice inside your head or anybody else around you or the experiences you've had in the past define who you are today and the things that you want to do," she said. "Second, don't wait. There's always a reason why now is not the right time. If you say, 'I'm just going for it, regardless of what that risk might be,' you'll find that not only are you going to be happier doing it, but you're going to find a way.
"And third," she continued, "do the research and find the right people to support you. There are so many people who will come in and say they're supporting you and they're just not right. If it doesn't feel right, just move on. Know what you need and surround yourself with really great people."