A subsection of tech is set to be worth $1 trillion. But taboos are holding it back
Investors are ignoring a huge subsection of tech because it’s considered “taboo” – despite the fact that it is set to be worth $1 trillion by 2027.
The FemTech sector includes all innovations designed to solve health issues suffered solely, differently, or disproportionately by women. It covers everything from health during pregnancy and the menopause, to Alzheimer’s and HIV.
Women make up more than 50% of the global population, which means the target market for products focusing on their health is massive. But just 3.3% of digital health investment in the U.S. went towards women’s health between 2011 and 2020, according to digital consultancy Rock Health.
And nurturing innovation within the female health space doesn’t just benefit women.
Research by Women’s Health Access Matters, a nonprofit organization focused on funding for women’s health research, suggests that a $300 million investment into improving female health could generate around $13 billion for the global economy.
Research by Women’s Health Access Matters suggests that a $300 million investment into improving female health could generate around $13 billion.
De Agostini Picture Library | De Agostini | Getty Images
“The opportunities and the potential for value creation of investing in this area is huge,” Karen Taylor, research director of the Centre for Health Solutions at Deloitte told CNBC.
“So I think if there was some more homework done by some of these investors, they’d understand why this is an area that is ripe for growth and investment.
“They just didn’t really get it”
Tania Boler created Elvie, a tech company focused on women’s health, in 2013 after she found a lack of products designed for new mothers. Elvie’s main products are pelvic floor trainers and portable breast pumps.
But not everybody took her new business seriously.
“To be completely honest, the tech industry thought it was a joke,” Boler told CNBC.
“They just didn’t really get it … [and] in quite a few women’s health issues, the problem is that because there’s a lack of education, there’s a lack of demand. From an investment point of view it’s not clear what the thesis is,” Boler said.
Personal understanding of a product is often key for investors, but the stats show that most investment decisions are made by men. A 2022 report by European Women in VC, a collection of senior female venture capitalists, found that just 15% of VC general partners were female.
Despite the barriers, Elvie has gone big. It is now one of the largest companies in the FemTech space and has a revenue of $100 million. There are examples of women who have run marathons and performed surgery while expressing milk using Elvie pumps, which CEO Tania Boler said highlights the human impact of investing in women’s health.
“We went with a very strong message of empowerment, but at the same time we tackle the taboos head-on, we don’t shy away from that. And that starts the conversation,” Boler said.
The issue of not understanding women’s health – and the importance of female-specific health solutions – has deeper roots.
“Because it’s been such a taboo topic, it’s really hard to overcome,” Valerie Evans, consumer investor at venture capital fund The Craftory, said.
“Not because [investors] don’t want to know and not because they’re purposefully ignorant, but I think it’s an overall societal problem that sort of permeates the investing world.”
And while the number of female investors is limited, the gender balance within company teams can also impact how difficult it is to get backing.
‘Being angry feminists hasn’t worked’
More than 70% of FemTech companies have at least one female founder, compared to the 20% average, according to McKinsey & Company.
But that means the odds are stacked against them.
Less than 3% of venture capitalist funds went to female-led startups in 2020, according to data from business school INSEAD, while female entrepreneurs are 63% less likely to get VC funding than men.
Deloitte’s Taylor said female founders also generally ask investors for less money than their male counterparts, which could be harming their prospects within the space.
“There’s lots of research that shows women tend to be much more honest and play down what they believe is the potential for their innovation,” she said. “Men are notorious for big sales and investors are used to it.”
Economies will grow when women can birth taxpayers and not die in the process
Brittany Barreto
Founder and CEO of FemHealth Insights
For Brittany Barreto, founder of FemTech analytics platform FemHealth Insights, these figures emphasize the importance of startups taking accurate data to investors — so if they can’t appeal to personal experience (because the VCs are men), they can provide robust information.
“It was very important that we stick to the data part of all of this because if we’re just angry feminists, that hasn’t worked yet. So I was like: let’s be scientists and let’s be business people,” Barreto said.
And the FemTech sector is growing at an astounding rate. More than 60% of FemTech startups were founded in the five years leading to 2022, and there has been a 1,000% increase in the number of businesses in the space over the last 10 years, according to FemHealth Insights research.
These growth rates — despite myriad obstacles — are encouraging for an industry that has been struggling to gain traction.
“I am incredibly optimistic for the future of women’s health,” Barreto said, stressing the huge potential benefits for the world.
“The economic potential for countries if they can empower women to feel better, to live longer, live with more mobility?” she said. “Women have money. Economies will grow if we make women healthy.”
Chief executive officer of Google Sundar Pichai.
Marek Antoni Iwanczuk | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Google on Friday made the latest a splash in the AI talent wars, announcing an agreement to bring in Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf.
As part of the deal, Google will also hire other senior Windsurf research and development employees. Google is not investing in Windsurf, but the search giant will take a nonexclusive license to certain Windsurf technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Windsurf remains free to license its technology to others.
“We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an email. “We’re excited to continue bringing the benefits of Gemini to software developers everywhere.”
The deal between Google and Windsurf comes after the AI coding startup had been in talks with OpenAI for a $3 billion acquisition deal, CNBC reported in April. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move ratchets up the talent war in AI particularly among prominent companies. Meta has made lucrative job offers to several employees at OpenAI in recent weeks. Most notably, the Facebook parent added Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang to lead its AI strategy as part of a $14.3 billion investment into his startup.
Douglas Chen, another Windsurf co-founder, will be among those joining Google in the deal, Jeff Wang, the startup’s new interim CEO and its head of business for the past two years, wrote in a post on X.
“Most of Windsurf’s world-class team will continue to build the Windsurf product with the goal of maximizing its impact in the enterprise,” Wang wrote.
Windsurf has become more popular this year as an option for so-called vibe coding, which is the process of using new age AI tools to write code. Developers and non-developers have embraced the concept, leading to more revenue for Windsurf and competitors, such as Cursor, which OpenAI also looked at buying. All the interest has led investors to assign higher valuations to the startups.
This isn’t the first time Google has hired select people out of a startup. It did the same with Character.AI last summer. Amazon and Microsoft have also absorbed AI talent in this fashion, with the Adept and Inflection deals, respectively.
Microsoft is pushing an agent mode in its Visual Studio Code editor for vibe coding. In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said AI is composing as much of 30% of his company’s code.
The Verge reported the Google-Windsurf deal earlier on Friday.
Technology
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang sells more than $36 million in stock, catches Warren Buffett in net worth
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, holds a motherboard as he speaks during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 11, 2025.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unloaded roughly $36.4 million worth of stock in the leading artificial intelligence chipmaker, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
The sale, which totals 225,000 shares, comes as part of Huang’s previously adopted plan in March to unload up to 6 million shares of Nvidia through the end of the year. He sold his first batch of stock from the agreement in June, equaling about $15 million.
Last year, the tech executive sold about $700 million worth of shares as part of a prearranged plan. Nvidia stock climbed about 1% Friday.
Huang’s net worth has skyrocketed as investors bet on Nvidia’s AI dominance and graphics processing units powering large language models.
The 62-year-old’s wealth has grown by more than a quarter, or about $29 billion, since the start of 2025 alone, based on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. His net worth last stood at $143 billion in the index, putting him neck-and-neck with Berkshire Hathaway‘s Warren Buffett at $144 billion.
Shortly after the market opened Friday, Fortune‘s analysis of net worth had Huang ahead of Buffett, with the Nvidia CEO at $143.7 billion and the Oracle of Omaha at $142.1 billion.
The company has also achieved its own notable milestones this year, as it prospers off the AI boom.
On Wednesday, the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker became the first company to top a $4 trillion market capitalization, beating out both Microsoft and Apple. The chipmaker closed above that milestone Thursday as CNBC reported that the technology titan met with President Donald Trump.
Brooke Seawell, venture partner at New Enterprise Associates, sold about $24 million worth of Nvidia shares, according to an SEC filing. Seawell has been on the company’s board since 1997, according to the company.
Huang still holds more than 858 million shares of Nvidia, both directly and indirectly, in different partnerships and trusts.
WATCH: Nvidia hits $4 trillion in market cap milestone despite curbs on chip exports
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