Hormony - D2C Hormone Detection and Monitoring

We are proud to announce the addition of Hormony to our portfolio!

A Femtech startup with roots in Chihuahua that seeks to transform the detection of perimenopause and women's hormonal health as a whole.

Perimeno-what? Perimenopause is the phase prior to menopause. Symptoms can appear slowly and be difficult to notice, so women may not realize they are in this stage.
Founders: Mayra Hurtado (CEO) and Dr. Sarita Kumble (CSO).
Product: The first rapid saliva test to measure and manage hormones at home. Results in minutes, integrated into an app with history and personalized visualizations.
The goal: for every woman, starting at age 35, to have reliable tools to anticipate and manage this stage.

Mayra also played a key role in the first Femtech Forum, held in Chihuahua City. This led to discussions and insights that opened up new perspectives on the future of women's health.

In this blog, we share those ideas and explain why we decided to invest in Mayra and the Hormony team.

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Femtech Forum 2025: How Femtech Can Revolutionize Women's Health

The First Femtech Forum, held in Chihuahua in March 2025, focused on improving healthcare for women. Ways to innovate in healthcare with scalable solutions and the importance of collaboration between the sector and educational institutions were discussed.

Brittany Barreto, PhD. Presented a clear picture: medical research has historically ignored women's health. This bias explains many of the challenges that Femtech companies, such as Hormony, are solving today.

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🩺 (Just a few) Gender biases in medical R&D

• Male models as the standard: 76% of cell models are male. Since drug discovery starts with cells, ignoring female biology can mean discarding treatments that would work better for women.
• The female brain forgotten: of 43,000 studies on brain activity, only 286 (0.5%) analyze stages like childbirth, puberty, or ovulation. This gap leaves little understanding of why conditions such as Alzheimer’s, migraines, or postpartum depression disproportionately affect women.
• Exclusionary clinical trials: until 1993, women were left out of early-stage drug trials. Many medications —from sleep aids to heart drugs— were only tested on men, which is why women today experience 5x more adverse side effects (ranging from higher toxicity to incorrect dosages).
• Biased aging: there are almost no longitudinal studies on premature menopause or female aging, limiting our ability to design treatments for one of the most significant transitions in women’s health.

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💸 Public and Private Funding for Women's Health
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Government and private sector funding in the United States reveals a significant disparity in the investment gap in women's health that is as evident as it is costly.

• NIH: Research on menopause receives <0.0001% of the total budget, despite affecting half of the world's population.‍
• Pharmaceutical companies: Only 1% of R&D funds are allocated to women's health → several have closed their specialized areas (Bayer, J&J, Amazon, Pfizer).‍
• Venture capital: in 2024, only 8.5% of HealthTech investment went to Femtech.‍
  
  • Female founders vs. male founders: 85% of Femtech startups are led by women, but men raise more capital in the same sector.

This disparity leaves a huge gap in innovation and care. Femtech companies are not only responding to this gap: they are turning a historical debt into a market opportunity.

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🌎👸🏻 A $1.2 trillion economy... Femtech is not a niche

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The Femtech sector is leaving behind the “niche” label and establishing itself as one of the most dynamic industries.

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📍Size and scope

• Estimated value: USD 1.2 trillion (23 trillion pesos), according to an analysis of more than 103 conditions in 21 categories.
• Focus: not limited to reproductive health → also autoimmune diseases, bone, heart, brain, and hormonal health.
• Driving force: greater female participation in the workforce, STEM careers, and the financial sector.

📍Accelerated growth

• More than 1,700 active Femtech companies worldwide; half of them created in the last 5 years.
• Faster exits: on average 4 years, vs. 8 years for general tech startups.
• Average exit value: $353 million, higher than the average of $275 million for traditional startups.
• Market activity: more than 18 IPOs and 145 M&As.

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📍Economic impact

• Investments in Femtech have already generated more than $34B in economic value.
• McKinsey estimates an additional boost of $1T to the global economy by 2040 if investment continues.
• For every dollar invested in women's health → estimated return of $3 in economic growth.
• Direct benefit: healthier women participate more and better in the economy.

"When women thrive, everyone thrives. Because women have done SO MUCH while feeling bad. I can't wait to see what women can achieve in the world when we are functioning at full capacity – when we feel GOOD."                                                                                          - Brittany Barreto, PhD.

🥊 Breaking the Taboo of Menopause

For many years, menopause was a topic shrouded in invisibility, rarely studied or discussed, and often stigmatized. However, this is now changing.

• Public figures and opinion leaders have begun to speak openly about the subject.
• The cultural conversation opens the door to greater research, innovation, and capital.
• The market is vast: solutions that improve quality of life at this stage also mean sustained economic productivity.

Hormony Case Study

 By Cosette Rodriguez

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🧘🏽‍♀️ A Strategic Bet on Hormonal Health

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The transition to perimenopause is a huge and underserved market. Hormony addresses it with a scientific, digital, and scalable solution.

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1. The Problem:

• 4 out of 5 women suffer from perimenopause symptoms that affect their quality of life.
• Complex diagnosis: some consult up to 10 specialists before finding relief.
• Shortage of specialists: only 1 per 9,000 women.
• A fragmented healthcare system with no comprehensive solutions for hormone management.

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2. The opportunity

• More than 1 billion women in perimenopause.
• Annual expenditure: USD 600 billion on consultations, products, and treatments.
• The Femtech sector is growing rapidly, but women's hormonal health remains largely underserved.

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3. Hormony's solution

• Rapid at-home saliva tests, with results in 10 minutes (starting with cortisol, the stress hormone).
• AI app that translates results into personalized recommendations for nutrition, supplements, and lifestyle.

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4. Differentiators

• Exclusive focus on perimenopause, a high-impact, low-innovation segment.
• Immediate results at home (no labs or waiting).
• Digital platform with personalized experiences and continuous learning.
• Building a diverse dataset on women's hormonal health, with a focus on Latina and Asian women—currently underrepresented in more than 80% of global clinical data.

5. The team

• Mayra Hurtado (CEO): 20+ years in strategy and international expansion (formerly Adidas SEA/Pacific).
• Dr. Sarita Kumble (CSO): PhD in biochemistry, founder of Pictor Limited, expert in biotechnology and immunodiagnostics.
• Joe Dunbar: Saliva testing specialist with 10 years of experience in sports applications.

Conclusion

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The Hormony case reflects two realities:

1. Women's health has historically been neglected.
2. This lack of attention creates a space for innovation with great potential for impact.

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A solution focused on perimenopause, backed by science and technology, can not only improve the quality of life for millions of women, but also generate tangible returns in productivity and economic growth.

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At Ferter, we believe that supporting companies like Hormony means investing in a future where women's health is addressed with precision, empathy, and a global vision.

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Consulted Sources

Balch, B. (2024, March 26). Why we know so little about women’s health. AAMCNews. https://www.aamc.org/news/why-we-know-so-little-about-women-s-health

Barreto, B. (2025, March 26). Unlocking women’s health [Keynote address]. FemTech MX Forum 2025, Chihuahua, Mexico.

Delgado, J., Abadía, M. C., Akyüz, K., Goisauf, M., & Rodríguez-Arias, D. (2024). Uncovering the persistent gap: The ongoing challenge of integrating sex and gender in biomedical research. Journal of biomedical research, 39(1), 18–22. https://doi.org/10.7555/JBR.38.20240157

Fallon, B. (2024, October 15). 12 celebrities who have been candid about menopause: Menopause is going mainstream. NewBeauty. Retrieved from https://www.newbeauty.com/celebrities-open-about-menopause/

Flórez-Vargas, O., Brass, A., Karystianis, G., Bramhall, M., Stevens, R., Cruickshank, S., & Nenadic, G. (2016). Bias in the reporting of sex and age in biomedical research on mouse models. eLife, 5, e13615. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.13615

Galen Growth. (2025, June 16). Femtech’s rise and roadblocks: Digital health funding, growth and gaps. https://www.galengrowth.com/femtechs-rise-and-roadblocks-digital-health-funding-growth-and-gaps/

Grand View Research. (2025). FemTech market size, share, & trends analysis report by type (devices, software, services), by application (pregnancy and nursing care), by end-use (direct to consumer), by region, and segment forecasts, 2025–2030. Grand View Research. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/femtech-market-report

Kemble, E., Pérez, L., Sartori, V., Tolub, G., & Zheng, A. (2022, February 14). The dawn of the FemTech revolution. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare/our-insights/the-dawn-of-the-femtech-revolution

Knickerbocker, K. (2023, December 7). What is femtech? PitchBook. https://pitchbook.com/blog/what-is-femtech

Malvezzi, H., Marengo, E. B., Podgaec, S., & Piccinato, C. de A. (2020). Endometriosis: Current challenges in modeling a multifactorial disease of unknown etiology. Journal of Translational Medicine, 18(311). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12967-020-02471-0

Mamlouk, G. M., Dorris, D. M., Barrett, L. R., & Meitzen, J. (2020). Sex bias and omission in neuroscience research is influenced by research model and journal, but not reported NIH funding. Frontiers in neuroendocrinology, 57, 100835. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yfrne.2020.100835

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Funding: FY1996-FY2025. (2025, August 22). https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R43341

Nature. (2025, January 23). Menopause research is globally underfunded. It’s time to change that. Nature, 637(763). https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-00150-y

Plevkova, J., Brozmanova, M., Harsanyiova, J., Sterusky, M., Honetschlager, J., & Buday, T. (2020). Various aspects of sex and gender bias in biomedical research. Physiological research, 69(Suppl 3), S367–S378. https://doi.org/10.33549/physiolres.934593

United Nations, General Assembly. (2021, July 16). Human rights of older women: The intersection between ageing and gender (A/76/157). https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/report-intersection-ageing-gender