SINGAPORE - From periods to fertility issues, more home-grown feminine care start-ups are improving access to women’s health and wellness. With International Women’s Day taking place on March 8, The Straits Times catches up with three such companies.

Zora Health: The ‘Booking.com’ for fertility solutions

Looking to freeze your eggs and not sure where to start? Zora Health (zorahealth.co) has you covered.

The platform founded by former wealth management banker and serial entrepreneur Anna Haotanto, 40, serves as a one-stop resource for all things egg-freezing and in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). Users can write in for advice for free, and be connected to Zora’s network of more than 70 clinics across 12 countries. The service is funded by the corporate employers and fertility care providers it works with.

Simplifying the fertility journey, Zora can even help with booking procedures in the most popular destinations for egg-freezing – namely Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the United States and Australia.

“We’re like Booking.com for fertility,” Ms Haotanto quips.

The Singaporean founded Zora in May 2023 upon noticing the absence of a centralised platform for information on and prices for fertility treatments.

Having previously suffered from polycystic ovary syndrome, she got more interested in reproductive health a year ago, after suspecting that she was developing symptoms of perimenopause and failing to find sufficient information on it.

It is her first time entering the healthcare space, though she is no stranger to entrepreneurship.

She left an eight-year career in banking in 2015 to found The New Savvy, a financial literacy platform to help women manage their money. It was hacked and held ransom in 2017. She salvaged and rebuilt it into a community platform, but the harrowing ordeal pushed her to go into a new industry.

She then co-founded food and beverage-focused investment firms ABZD Capital and Gourmet Food Holdings. She stepped down from both ventures in 2022, in part due to health reasons.

Zora started from her personal experience with egg-freezing on a whim.

Then 33, she had agreed to accompany an anxious friend to do the procedure. When the friend got cold feet, Ms Haotanto decided to proceed on her own, having already spent time and money on doctor’s tests and taking hormone pills.

With no prior research done, she flew to Kuala Lumpur alone to do egg retrieval and storage.

She kept mum about it, but through the grapevine, friends of friends who were keen on egg-freezing began approaching her for advice. She spoke to more than 80 people in two years.

Then the pandemic hit – and more women in their 30s, unable to travel for the procedure, “panicked” and came to her.

Tired of always answering the same few questions, she wrote a thoroughly researched article about her experience on her blog (annahaotanto.com) which went viral. The response helped her see how underserved the market was.

“A lot more start-ups were getting into the birth control or reproductive health space, but not many focused on fertility and egg-freezing,” says Ms Haotanto, who is in a relationship.

“More are doing the treatments but it’s still very taboo. There’s a lot of guilt and shame associated with it. Many women who can’t get pregnant blame themselves – or are blamed by others. I’ve heard from patients that they told their husbands, ‘Why don’t you just divorce me because I’m useless?’

“One big misconception is that it’s a very niche market. It’s not. It’s a $54 billion market,” she adds.

She joined global venture capital firm Antler’s start-up accelerator programme in early 2023, and launched Zora in May.

The platform’s main service is its free global medical concierge, which answers questions on fertility treatments and country regulations through one-on-one calls. It also has a fertility clinic directory with 3,000 listings. While Zora works with mostly private clinics – including four in Singapore – it also refers potential IVF patients to public hospitals.

Zora does not give out medical advice as that is best left to the doctors, she says. “About 60 per cent of people who come to our site already know who they want to go to.”

Some conversations can go on for six months. Since its founding, Zora has made 50 referrals in 10 months. More inquiries flooded in after the legalisation of elective egg freezing for non-medical reasons in Singapore took effect on July 1, 2023.

Financing fertility

One of the biggest problems users face in egg-freezing and IVF today is cost.

In Singapore, egg-freezing at a private clinic costs an average of $16,000 per egg-retrieval process, and can go up to $25,000, says Ms Haotanto. “The Government is doing a lot of things, and we’re trying to ease the process, but corporations can help.”

For now, Zora helps point users to clinics with instalment plans, but she hopes to work with financial institutions to distribute loans to women.

To drive change on a larger scale, a second arm of the company works with corporations to hold Q&A sessions, workshops and sensitivity training for its employees.

Ms Haotanto is also in talks to provide corporate fertility benefits, akin to medical benefits.

“A few years ago, you would never have imagined that you would have mental health benefits in the workplace. If companies can pay for dental benefits and mental health, why not reproductive health?” she says, adding that some tech firms in the US use it as a talent retention tool.

The lack of understanding echoes a larger funding problem founders face in the femtech industry. When pitching to venture capital firms, Ms Haotanto has been met with a lack of understanding.

“Women’s healthcare has not had enough research, so it has been very misunderstood. A lot of people don’t understand fertility, or just women’s conditions, until they experience it. When fund-raising, I had to explain what fertility is, why this is even a problem and what is the solution.”

And even after that, “many writing the cheques are still men”. There are detractors who do not view the femtech industry as an investable market, she says. “People discount and undervalue it. They ask me, ‘Why are you solving this issue when it’s just for women?’”

Today, Zora is funded by Antler, along with angel investors who believe in her cause.

Content creation to educate on the importance of fertility solutions is key, says Ms Haotanto, hence her focus on writing resources.

In end-March, the website will launch a marketplace that will directly sell fertility tests, ovulation kits and services such as mental health support.

“In three years, we hope to be the go-to platform for reproductive health and family planning – not just for women, but men too. Most of all, I want to work with corporates, brokers and insurers to support the workforce. To solve falling birth rates globally, it takes a concerted effort from all,” she says.

“I want to help people live with options and without limitations. We don’t just prescribe one solution. We want them to know – you have options, and you decide how you want to live your life.”

Blood: Corn pads and heat patches for pain-free periods

The next time you go shopping for sanitary pads, look out for Blood.

Stocked in major pharmacies and retailers, the period care brand with bright red packaging as shocking as its name was founded in Singapore. And do not be surprised by the claims that its pads ($6.55) are “made from corn”.

The pad’s biodegradable top sheet is made from corn waste, making it antibacterial, hypoallergenic and skin-friendly – containing zero harmful chemicals and minimising irritation to the body.

Extensive consumer research found that rash and itch were the top issues that women with periods faced, says founder Tan Peck Ying, who at the time was using a commercial brand. “Existing products didn’t address this very well.”

Period relief has always been at the heart of Blood. It was founded in 2015 as PS. Love, and is better known for its debut product MenstruHeat.

The stick-on heat-therapy patch was developed to tackle menstrual cramps, which Ms Tan suffered from. The 36-year-old had been taking painkillers regularly and wanted a more natural solution.

Noticing a gap in the market for drug-free pain-relief options, the life sciences major from the National University of Singapore (NUS) left her full-time job at NUS Enterprise to found her company.

Her then boyfriend Caleb Leow, a fresh graduate with a real estate degree from NUS, saw potential in the brand and joined as co-founder. They bootstrapped the business and put in about $100,000 of their savings over two years, forgoing a salary.

In the beginning, big retailers had no confidence to take a chance on them, Mr Leow, 35, recalls. The pair – who are now married with two sons, a 3½-year-old and a newborn – went door-knocking at various minimarts and pharmacies, until the bookshop at Ngee Ann Polytechnic answered.

With no available shelf space, the small store let them hang the products on a strip by the shelf. When students started buying, it gave them momentum to court other retailers.

In a few months, they amassed around 60 small stockists. “When we went back to the big retailers the second time round, one buyer said, ‘Oh, you’re still alive,’” jokes Mr Leow.

Guardian pharmacy became the first major retailer to stock MenstruHeat in 2016.

“I understand the issue intimately since it’s a problem I personally face,” says Ms Tan. “But it wasn’t so easy to explain to individuals who don’t personally go through the pain. And you need retailers and investors (who understand) to grow and scale the business.”

Their offerings expanded to encompass heat patches for other parts of the body.

In 2019, they decided to refocus on their roots of menstruation-related products, a “sleepy category” with room for improvement, says Ms Tan. “There was space for a product that uses more natural materials, and is safer and better for the body.”

The next year, newly rebranded Blood launched menstrual cups. Sanitary pads had been the plan, but during the pandemic, every pad manufacturer they were in talks with was busy making face masks.

In sourcing naturally derived materials that would be gentler on the skin, they tried bamboo and eucalyptus, but could not find something truly high-performance and absorbent. Then they found repurposed corn, commonly used in food packaging.

Most brands feature top sheets made from plastic or organic cotton. But plastic can get scratchy, leading companies to design an emollient layer on top, which can contain chemicals, says Mr Leow. And organic cotton, which is softer, is “naturally hydrophilic”, meaning it stays damp for longer.

Ms Tan’s background in biomedical science helped her better understand material science to develop the right product. “We knew we wouldn’t launch our pad product if I personally wouldn’t use it for the long term.”

Blood has since expanded its corn pad range to include overnight panty pads ($6.55) and liners ($4.55), and is exploring products adjacent to the feminine care space, such as maternity and incontinence liners.

Singapore is relatively “blessed” in that most consumers are able to afford menstrual products, although “there are still pockets of people who don’t have access”, says Mr Leow.

“In our other key markets like Indonesia and Malaysia, this is more pronounced. Price can sometimes limit options,” notes Ms Tan. Blood has given out free pads to communities in need, including Singapore non-profit Go With The Flow, but is looking for more long-term solutions.

Lack of education also hinders access, as “social stigma and taboos (around periods) tend to be passed down generations”, which Blood addresses in its digital content.

Ms Tan adds: “We strive to keep creating better products that are safer for the body, and also continue normalising periods through education and initiatives to help individuals feel more at ease with their periods.”

Moom Health: Home-grown supplement brand tackles fertility, launches in major pharmacies

Three years on from its founding, Moom Health has become the go-to supplement label for millennial women in Singapore.

The company’s personalised 30-day packs – which curate vitamins tailored to one’s needs determined from taking an online quiz – and bottled remedies for specific concerns have been taking over social media and, now, shelves near you.

In January, Moom made its retail debut in more than 40 Watsons stores in Singapore. In February, it entered Kuala Lumpur via competing pharmacy retailer Guardian, and will be stocked in a network of 250 stores in Malaysia by end-March. Prices start at $43.90 for a De/Bloat jar of 45 pills.

Founded by Singaporean sisters Mili and Maya Kale, the brand launched in 2021 with a subscription service of natural supplements – made from herbs rooted in traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda – and has seen rapid growth since.

In September 2022, Moom closed $1.2 million in seed funding, with investors including venture capital firm DSG Consumer Partners and fashion brand Love, Bonito.

The success of De/Bloat, its first “fast-acting remedy” developed to reduce bloating in an hour, in particular, helped the brand really take off and convince people to try Moom’s personalised offerings, says Mili, 32.

“That learning, and being able to do clinical trials, helped further our goal of debunking the myth that natural remedies don’t work,” adds Maya, 29.

It paved the way for its next two remedies – Sleep/Well, targeting sleep health, and Cramp/Less, for pain relief from pre-menstrual stress and menstrual cramps. Launched in August 2023, Cramp/Less is also Moom’s first supplement targeting women specifically.

For the first time, Moom will be entering the hormone and fertility space, with an upcoming product designed to help manage the symptoms of PCOS, or polycystic ovary syndrome. It marks a new chapter of developing women-centric products – and a return to its roots.

After all, the brand started because of Maya’s experience living with PCOS, which led her to try all sorts of medicines and natural remedies.

Among them was inositol, she says, describing it as a “multivitamin for your hormones” that needs to be taken in larger doses. A form of sugar naturally found in the body, it is promoted as a dietary supplement said to help with balancing hormones.

But the global supply of inositol has been monopolised by a handful of Western brands, and is costly and hard to get hold of in Singapore, she notes.

“The largest brand charges $112 for a 90-day supply. It’s also a fragmented market and not readily accessible in Singapore. You have to go on Amazon or iHerb to buy it,” says Maya.

Local pharmacies told them it was too expensive to import, Mili adds. “We wanted to recreate something for the Asian market.”

Launching in April, Moom’s yet-unnamed product is a drink powder – a first in its capsule supplement offerings – soluble in warm and cold water. To counter inositol’s longstanding “clinical” image, the product gets the Moom touch, says Maya, presented in easy 30-day sachets one can “rip and sip”.

The ingredient make-up is almost identical to and comparable with what is already on the market, with the main difference being taste and texture.

Western consumers tend to prefer flavourless supplements to mix into smoothies, but less than 8 per cent of the Singapore consumer base take smoothies as a daily ritual, Moom found. Because “taste is such a big part of the consumerist mindset in Asia”, it added lemon flavouring.

In its final stage, the product will be tested with more than 50 women from Moom’s community over March. The development process started more than a year ago, after the brand saw demand for it from its personalised quizzes and community surveys.

From a survey of 600 women in Singapore and Malaysia, Moom found that the three most glaring issues within the space of hormone health and fertility were PCOS, endometriosis and trying to conceive. They also found that one in six women today have fertility issues.

“We really use our community as a growth channel – what they want fuels a lot of our product development,” says Mili.

“Trust will be a huge issue,” Maya notes on Moom entering the prickly domain of fertility. Later on, it hopes to work with gynaecologists, but for now, its focus is on the pre- and post-pregnancy journey – “forgotten stages” many women do not feel supported in.

“We want to create community-built supplements,” she adds, comparing it with how the crypto community has helped democratise the financial world. “It has never been like this in the supplement world, which has always been very top-down.

“Traditionally, the supplement industry brings to mind protein powders. In general, the health world is very tailored towards men. There is a need for an increase in women-centric health products.”

The sisters, both married without children, aim to pair every product launch with education on women’s wellness. “Everybody knows what you need when you get a cough or cold. When it comes to what you need for how your body feels, people are lost,” says Mili.

“There haven’t been enough platforms that openly speak about hormonal health. We’re not taught this growing up.”