Ladies’s well being startup Maven raises $90 million in post-Roe v Wade growth

Founder and CEO of Maven Clinic Kate Ryder, the first $1 billion female health tech unicorn.

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Maven, the women’s and family health start-up, has raised $90 million in a new round of fundraising and a difficult environment for venture capital funding.

The round, led by General Catalyst and with participation from CVS Health Ventures, the VC arm of Intermountain Healthcare and European venture firm La Famiglia, brings Maven’s total capital to $300 million. Maven reached unicorn status in a $110 million round last August just before the tech sector bottomed out. While the tech downturn is forcing some startups down, Maven founder and CEO Kate Ryder said in a blog post that the latest deal has pushed the valuation, albeit slightly, to $1.35 billion.

Maven has benefited from a greater focus on women’s health, particularly since the Supreme Court overthrew Roe V. Wade. Ryder recently told CNBC that following the SCOTUS decision, the company has seen a month-over-month increase in opportunities from companies seeking travel benefits and other healthcare support for pregnant women.

“Because we were in the market, because we had a platform to access, we were able to jump up and up with our products,” Ryder said at the recent CNBC Work Summit.

Maven Clinic has seen a broader surge in demand for its products over the past two years amid a pandemic and a tight job market, which it attributed to the accessibility of its virtual platform as well as its outspoken support of health justice.

“The fall of Roe v. Wade has created additional injustices in a system already riddled with them, in a country where 50% of counties don’t have a gynecologist and where maternal mortality rates exceed those of any other developed country,” she wrote in the blog post.

Maven now reaches 15 million members, a 5x increase over last year, across its 450+ corporate and payer (insurance) customers in 175+ countries, and the platform supports 30+ vendor specialties in 30 vendor languages. Maven Clinic was ranked #19 on the 2022 CNBC Disruptor 50 list.

Maven customers included Microsoft and L’Oreal. Previous fundraising rounds have attracted successful American women, including Oprah Winfrey, Mindy Kaling, Natalie Portman and Reese Witherspoon.

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Ryder has said in the past that her determination to create Maven was partly the result of her own medical frustration and trauma. A miscarriage left her “feeling lost, discouraged and confused as to why something so painful and physically demanding was considered outside the confines of traditional healthcare,” she wrote in a blog post.

With the new funding, Ryder said the company must be cautious about scaling, but will not be conservative with money given the need to invest in growth opportunities despite the current economic environment. “We do not set aside this asset for a rainy day,” she wrote Monday.

The growth in global family benefits and Medicaid are two areas Maven is prioritizing with the new funding. The family benefits build on the virtual platform that has grown during Covid and include new features for Maven Wallet, the company’s financial reimbursement platform. Further expansion of Medicaid requires “a more localized approach that needs to be more intentional,” Ryder said, “but the need, particularly after Roe, has never been greater.”

The Maven CEO laid out more about her strategic thinking in a series of Twitter posts following the fundraiser.