ESME, a Lincoln-based company now part of the Techstars Startup Community Partnership Founder Catalyst cohort, is stepping into one of the most complex corners of modern health innovation: using artificial intelligence to improve women’s health outcomes.
As a femtech company connected to Herwell Integrated Health, ESME aims to build digital tools that bring together data, insight, and care coordination for women across different life stages.
As Anastasia Grenfell, one of the founders, stated in a recent Linkedin post: “HERStage unifies fitness, clinical care, labs, and nutrition into one personalized hub for women. We turn health data into context and clear actions, closing the gap between insights and outcomes while creating a scalable, data-rich platform for better care and research.”
A Platform Business Model Rooted in AI and Care Integration
ESME’s model combines a software-as-a-service (SaaS) foundation with a potential B2B2C strategy that connects clinics, employers, and individual users. Rather than selling directly to consumers alone, the company plans to integrate its AI-driven platform into women’s health clinics and primary care practices — starting with Herwell’s network. The software would help clinicians interpret complex hormonal, behavioral, and physiological data to generate personalized care recommendations.
In parallel, ESME could offer a consumer-facing interface that lets patients track symptoms, visualize trends, and engage in guided self-care — bridging the often fragmented landscape between clinical data and wellness tracking. This hybrid model not only deepens engagement but also supports subscription-based revenue from both sides of the healthcare system: providers who need insight tools, and patients who want proactive guidance.
Go-to-Market Strategy: Starting Local, Scaling National
Early on, ESME’s go-to-market strategy centers on pilot programs within Nebraska, leveraging Herwell as a testbed for clinical integration and patient feedback. Working closely with healthcare partners allows the company to validate its algorithms, refine user experience, and establish evidence-based credibility before scaling.
Once validated, ESME intends to expand regionally through partnerships with OB/GYN practices, employer wellness programs, and integrated care networks, many of which are increasingly seeking digital tools to support women’s health benefits. That focus on institutional partners — rather than broad direct-to-consumer marketing — could help the company achieve early traction while maintaining a high standard of clinical reliability and data privacy.
The Promise and Peril of Femtech
The femtech industry, which includes technologies supporting menstrual, reproductive, maternal, and hormonal health, is growing rapidly. Analysts project that the global femtech market could surpass $25 billion by 2030, fueled by advances in data analytics and AI-driven personalization.
One key struggle in the femtech market is the relative dearth of venture capital. Programs like Techstars’ Omaha program illustrate the opportunity but investors have not shown willingness to invest in femtech or women-owned businesses.
In 2024, US VC deal value for companies with at least one female founder reached over $38 billion, a 27% increase from 2023, although the share of total deals declined to 19.9%. While female-founded companies received a larger number of deals overall, the share of deal counts dropped, indicating that female founders received larger but fewer checks in 2024 compared to the previous year.
The Biggest Hurdles
Yet even with this capital crunch, as more companies enter the space, the risks are becoming clearer. Many femtech products collect deeply personal data — from fertility cycles to hormonal trends — and often operate in a regulatory gray area. Trust, ethics, and validation are now as important as innovation.
Privacy and security are perhaps the most urgent. A 2024 analysis of dozens of women’s health apps found that many share sensitive data with third parties or lack clear consent protocols. For companies like ESME, building trust means making privacy a feature, not an afterthought — encrypting user data, limiting collection, and giving users full transparency into how their information is used. Other key challenges including bias in AI models, regulation and clinical validation, and integration. These challenges are particularly high in areas where outside capital is not available for key studies, regulatory support, and optimal privacy construction. In other words, at a time when the problems and needs are becoming more clear, the ability to build to solve these remains a major challenge.
Lessons from the Field
Several companies offer useful parallels. Kindara pairs fertility tracking software with a connected thermometer, showing the power of combining digital and physical tools. Winx Health (formerly Stix) grew from a pregnancy-test startup into a broader reproductive health brand, demonstrating the potential of expanding responsibly. And Livia, developed by iPulse Medical, illustrates how hardware innovation and regulatory diligence can coexist in femtech.
A Local Testbed for Global Ideas
For ESME, Nebraska could be an advantage rather than a limitation. Its partnership with Herwell gives it access to real patients and providers, allowing for early validation in a controlled clinical setting. If the company can combine AI innovation with strong privacy practices, diverse data, and transparent communication, it could help set a new standard for trustworthy femtech — built not on hype, but on integrity.
