Инвестиции в сектор женского здоровья достигли рекордных показателей: стартапы разрабатывают тесты на микробиом влагалища и новые методы диагностики

In April, billionaire longevity obsessive Bryan Johnson posted the results of his girlfriend Kate Tolo’s vaginal microbiome test on X, declaring that she ranked in the “top 1% of all vaginas” with a score of 100 out of 100. Beneath the cringe internet overshare was a welcome indication that the vaginal microbiome has finally moved from an obscure area of medical research into mainstream conversation. Investors are already following suit. A new generation of startups is building around vaginal diagnostics, microbiome testing, reproductive health, and personalized care. New York-based Evvy, which focuses on vaginal microbiome testing and clinical care, has raised more than $20 million in funding and served more than 100,000 patients since launching five years ago. In 2025, Dutch startup Yon E Health raised €250,000 in pre-seed funding for a device designed to measure vaginal pH and temperature, while US startup LiviWell raised $3.3 million to develop a device intended to support vaginal microbiome health. All the while, women’s health companies attracted a record $1.55 billion in disclosed equity investment in 2025, up 41% from the previous year, according to W Group. Meanwhile, vaginal health content has surged across TikTok and Reddit, where users share symptoms, compare experiences and seek advice on everything from bacterial vaginosis and UTIs to discharge and vaginal hygiene. According to one study, 164 TikTok videos about vulvovaginal health collectively generated more than 500 million views and 60 million likes. “Longevity has pushed the health wellness industry into new territory, exploring every aspect of the body as an interconnected system — the gut, nasal and oral microbiomes are experiencing a similar boom in research and product innovation,” says Alice Crossley, principal strategic foresight analyst at The Future Laboratory. “While research into longevity has long been male focused, women fundamentally age differently, and the industry has treated their biological, hormonal and experiential distinctions as a side note,” Crossley continues, adding that innovators such as Marina Gerner, author of The Vagina Business, and Dr. Somi Javaid, founder and chief medical officer of healthcare platform HerMD, have helped to break down stigma while educating and empowering women to take control of their own health and anatomy. According to a Future Laboratory poll, 49% of women cite hormonal wellbeing as a growing priority in their wellness routines. The vaginal health boom is coinciding with culture’s optimization obsession, and while the idea of the “top 1% vagina” is absurd, it also raises a more serious question: what happens when a legitimate healthcare gap becomes another status marker for people with the money to quantify every part of themselves? Why has vaginal health been so historically undeserved? For years, intimate care was largely centered around simple cleansing. Gradually, it began borrowing the language of beauty and wellness via mists and sprays, pH-balanced products, “gynecologist-tested” claims, and references to the intimate microbiome. Now, a new generation of companies is moving the category into something considerably more sophisticated. Take Evvy, which offers at-home vaginal microbiome testing alongside clinical care. Patients send in a sample that is analyzed using metagenomic sequencing — a technique that sequences the genetic material of all the microbes in a sample, rather than narrowly looking for a predefined list, with results reviewed by clinicians who can recommend personalized treatment where appropriate. The test costs $159, or $129 with a membership. “When we started Evvy, our thesis was that there are enormous gaps in women’s healthcare because we haven’t invested enough in understanding female-specific biology,” says Priyanka Jain, Evvy CEO and co-founder. The vaginal microbiome was a natural place to start: it was deeply understudied, despite being relevant to health outcomes across the lifespan. There are numerous reasons for that neglect. “It comes down to stigma and a research gap, and the two reinforce each other in a vicious cycle,” says Jain. Vaginal symptoms, infections, discharge and odor have historically been surrounded by shame, she says, shaping what gets researched and how clinicians are trained. Then, there’s the much bigger structural problem: women weren’t required to be included in US clinical research until 1993, meaning medicine for decades didn’t adequately account for female biology. “The vaginal microbiome is a perfect example of what happens when you overlook female-specific biology. It affects millions of women across our lifespans, and yet we’ve approached it with simplistic testing and treatment pathways, and ignored the role that it plays in impacting health outcomes across our lifespan,” says Jain. “This combination — not enough data, not enough research, too many taboos, but huge patient impact — is exactly why we built Evvy.” Daye is taking a different route. Its diagnostic tampon is designed to collect vaginal fluid from inside the vaginal canal, which the company says can provide a broader sample than a conventional swab. The device is being developed to test for 25 markers spanning the vaginal microbiome, STIs and HPV. Rather than asking women to adapt to another piece of medical equipment, the proposition is to turn something already familiar into a healthcare tool. “The biggest change is that women are starting to recognize the scale of the gap in their care. We’re no longer simply being told that women’s health is under-researched, but we are seeing the consequences of that gap in their own lives. Women are starting to question why they can’t access certain tests, why they’ve been dismissed, or why a symptom they’ve been experiencing for years hasn’t been properly investigated,” says Valentina Milanova, CEO and founder of Daye. “For too long, so many of us have been given a wish-wash approach to care — a contraceptive pill for a heavy period, painkillers for chronic pelvic pain — without properly investigating what is driving those symptoms in the first place. That is changing.” Meanwhile, other companies are moving beyond diagnostics into products designed to alter or support the vaginal microbiome itself. Seed has developed VS-01, a vaginal synbiotic containing three proprietary Lactobacillus crispatus strains, while Vaginal Biome Science, founded by Good Clean Love’s Wendy Strgar, is developing microbiome-based therapies intended to restore and protect vaginal microbial health. The accessibility problem Vaginal health will remain niche if the propositions on the market are expensive, positioned as luxury optimizations, says Kayla Villena, global insight manager of beauty and personal care at Euromonitor. “It has a greater chance of scaling when solutions are incorporated into familiar care routines, sold through trusted channels and supported by clear education. We have seen this broader pattern across beauty and health, where diagnostics, preventive guidance and personalization are increasingly becoming shared capabilities across both industries.” That principle is already shaping some of the companies entering the space. “Accessibility has been a core part of how we’ve developed [the diagnostic tampon],” says Milanova. Daye tested the product with first-time tampon users in South Asian communities, trans men, and people with learning disabilities, using those experiences to shape both the product and its communications. Its information is written for a basic reading age and available in 12 languages. The full screening kit costs £99. “If we want to make diagnostics genuinely accessible, we have to design for the diversity of the people using them, rather than expecting everyone to navigate healthcare in the same way.” That matters because the people who stand to benefit from better vaginal healthcare are not necessarily biohackers with a longevity budget. They are people dealing with recurrent infections, unexplained symptoms, fertility concerns, menopause, and gaps in basic healthcare. The opportunity is to give them better information and better tools, not simply another reason to worry about whether their bodies are performing optimally. There is already a warning sign in the intimate care market. Products promising to make vaginas smell like peaches, tighten them, or make them feel more like a virgin, show how quickly legitimate interest in vaginal health can become another beauty industry built around insecurity. “That isn’t women empowerment,” says Milanova. “It takes an entirely normal body and creates a problem that women are then expected to spend money fixing.” Some products, she adds, can cause harm by disrupting the vaginal environment or causing irritation in pursuit of an arbitrary beauty ideal. “Are we creating products because women genuinely need them, or because we’ve found another insecurity we can monetize?” Crossley says that additional investment in women’s health can help close the gender health gap, but warns that venture capital must not turn an under-researched and highly personal area of healthcare into another opportunity for commercial exploitation. “Since venture capital is still hugely skewed against all-female founders, it is worth being wary of brands taking advantage of an under-researched but highly personal area of healthcare for commercial gain,” she explains. For Evvy’s Jain, that means resisting the temptation to treat vaginal health as simply the next wellness vertical. “I think it’s a mistake that vaginal health has been treated as a wellness category for so long — that’s probably part of why it’s stayed so underfunded and underserved,” she says. “Vaginal microbiome dysbiosis is a healthcare problem and deserves to be treated like one.” For Evvy, that means putting clinical rigor behind the consumer experience. The brand’s tests are ordered and interpreted by licensed clinicians, carried out in laboratories that meet federal clinical testing standards and have been approved under New York State’s clinical laboratory program. The results can then be matched with prescription treatment plans based on the patient’s results and health history. The company says this clinical-first approach is backed by peer-reviewed research demonstrating test accuracy and improvements in patient outcomes. “Vaginal health is at the root of real medical concerns — infections, infertility, preterm birth, gynecological cancer progression — and deserves clinical-grade solutions,” Jain continues. “Women want more than probiotics and lifestyle tips. They want and deserve better healthcare — real diagnoses, real treatment, and real answers to conditions that have gone unexplained for too long.” That creates a tension for the industry. The very lack of research and investment that makes vaginal health such an attractive emerging market is also what makes it vulnerable to overclaiming. If venture capital rushes into the category without sufficient clinical evidence, affordability or a commitment to broad access, it risks reproducing the same inequalities that created the gap in the first place. “I want to see an industry that makes women more knowledgeable, not more self-conscious,” says Milanova. “We should be giving women better diagnostics, better treatment, and better information so they can understand their bodies and advocate for themselves. That is the future of vaginal health. Not making women feel ashamed of the vaginas they already have.”