» Womens Health

Women's Health is Everyone's Business

Understanding go-to-market, design, data, and integration of chronic women’s health startups from an employers, payors, and health systems perspective

The Wider Women's Health Opportunity

Women make up the majority of those living with chronic conditions—like autoimmune disease, migraine, PCOS, and long COVID. They face later diagnoses, fragmented care, and treatment models that rarely reflect their biology, yet most health systems and insurers still operate on one-size-fits-all care. Some are shifting toward integrated, whole-person models. Others remain siloed—between payer and provider, mental and physical health, billing and reality.

This guide helps you spot those gaps early—so you can build for the reality of chronic disease, not just the reimbursement code.

What’s Inside

Most chronic illness or precision medicine startups don’t identify themselves as a women’s health startup and as a result, miss out on a lot of opportunities.

These 100 questions help you assess whether your solution is a real fit to this domain and relevant buyers and show you how to:

Spot which organizations are structurally ready to prioritize women’s health—and which are too fragmented to move
Identify who actually controls budgets, benefits, and care models and how to position your solution for them
Tailor your messaging and analyze your data to match the incentives, care gaps, and organizational priorities shaping women’s health today
Focus on mental health and longevity as key domains in women’s health

Bonus video: Interview with an investment executive at a leading global CVC

Managing Partner at a leading Global CVC

“This whitepaper doesn’t just reframe women’s health, it reframes what smart, systemic innovation in healthcare should look like. It offers founders and investors a powerful lens on how personalized, preventive solutions can drive both equity and outcomes at scale. At TELUS Global Ventures, we’re actively investing in this vision, and we see it as a blueprint for building durable, category-defining businesses.”

Terry Doyle

Managing Partner, TELUS Global Ventures

Chief Mental Health Officer & Clinician

“The insights in this guide are timely and evidence-based. It’s clear that we need to move beyond conventional definitions of women’s health and address the broader spectrum of conditions that affect women disproportionately. Whether it’s mental health, chronic pain, or hormonal transitions, solutions grounded in gender-informed data and experience design will be key to closing persistent care gaps”

Dr. Matthew Chow

Chief Mental Health Officer, TELUS Health

Startup CEO

“Health systems and algorithms alike reflect the data they’re trained on. The historical underrepresentation of women in clinical research and data infrastructure has created blind spots in care delivery. Closing these gaps isn’t just a matter of equity—it’s foundational to building systems that generalize, adapt, and truly serve diverse populations. This piece outlines both the systemic challenges and the practical pathways to more inclusive innovation.”

Dr. Ittai Dayan

CEO/co-founder - Rhino Federated Computing

About the Authors

Gal Noyman Veksler, PhD

Gal is a partner at LionBird and focuses on investments in pharma tech and precision medicine, women’s health and behavioral health. Gal works closely with Nest Genomics, Mana Bio, Phase V, Maverick Medical and others.

Gal previously co-founded and led Neurolabs AI, a startup in opioid addiction, and also served as the VP Business Development and Director of Healthcare of a global AI expert firm.

Gal is a member of Kauffman Fellows (class 28) and holds a PhD in clinical and Neuro psychology specializing in chronic pain. She has co-authored ten peer reviewed publications in leading academic journals such as Vaccine and Psychiatry.

Ravit Warsha Dor

Ravit is a Partner at TELUS Global Ventures, where she leads investments across AI infrastructure, Women’s Health, Digital Health, Agriculture & Consumer Goods, and Business Enablement Platforms. She plays a global role in shaping the fund’s strategy and portfolio, while also driving TELUS’ activity in the Israeli tech ecosystem.

Previously, Ravit was Partner and Head of Israel at Kamet Ventures, a €200M studio backed by AXA, and led Digital Health Innovation at the Israeli Ministry of Health. An engineer by training, she held leadership roles in product, R&D, and business development, co-founded a biofeedback startup, and has advised global health organizations. Ravit holds a B.Sc. in Bioinformatics from Tel-Aviv University and an MBA from Cambridge.

LionBird is a venture capital firm investing exclusively
in pre-scale digital health companies.

Since its inception, the firm has invested in more than 35+ founding teams and now has over $150 million in AUM.

Our focus is on helping founders lay the best foundations for their companies to scale and succeed.

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