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In recent years, with the rise of women's self-pleasure trend and health awareness, the "she economy" has risen strongly. With the increase in women's private care needs, technology products centered on "women's health" are in the limelight. According to Fortune Business Insights, the global women's health market size was US$35.02 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach US$41.05 billion by 2027, with a compound growth rate of 3.2% during the forecast period. Among them, the entire cycle of women's life and health covers infancy, adolescence, pregnancy, menopause, and old age. Since the corresponding health problems in different periods are different, sub-tracks focusing on each cycle have been born, such as menstrual management in adolescence and postpartum recovery during pregnancy. The brand we are going to analyze today is Elvie. In the early days, it launched a number of women's health and medical devices with intelligence as the core, focusing on women's postpartum scenarios. Since its establishment in 2013, Elvie has raised more than 4 rounds of financing, and has been on the Amazon category BSR list for many years, with annual sales exceeding 10 million US dollars. At a time when new brands are constantly emerging, what is the secret of Elvie's long-lasting success in the FemTech market? How does its technology products gain recognition from niche groups, and how does it gain the trust and support of users through marketing? Enter the market from the user's perspective
Looking back at the development history of Elvie, it has deep roots in the personal experience of its founder. Brand Ark learned that Elvie was founded in 2013. Its founder, Tania Boler, holds a PhD in sexual and reproductive health from the University of Oxford and is an expert in women’s health research. Prior to founding Elvie, Tania worked in medical research in areas such as HIV prevention and safe abortion practices, with a keen interest in women’s health issues. After Tania gave birth for the first time, she developed urinary incontinence. At this time, she noticed that many women around her who had given birth and were over 40 years old had urinary incontinence, but this problem did not receive the attention it deserved because of women's concept of "postpartum shame", and most of them chose to endure it in silence. Through in-depth understanding, Tania found that pelvic floor muscle repair is one of the effective ways to solve urinary incontinence, and biofeedback therapy is the most critical. However, since this technology can only be used in hospitals, it limits the rehabilitation exercises for most women. At the same time, after Tania tried many pelvic floor muscle repair products, she found that they still had many pain points and could not help women get real-time biofeedback . This gave her the idea of making a convenient and effective pelvic floor muscle trainer. From the user's perspective, Tania deeply felt the pain points and needs of postpartum women, and thus entered the women's market and founded Elvie. In October 2015, Elvie launched its first product, Elvie Trainer, to help women exercise their pelvic floor muscles and promote postpartum recovery. This product has won 12 innovation and design awards and has been recognized by many health professionals. According to data, Elvie started to make a profit six months after its establishment, earning $1 million in revenue in 2016, $26.8 million in 2019, and $51.8 million in 2021. Today, Elvie's annual sales on Amazon alone have reached tens of millions of dollars. In addition, Elvie is also active in the capital market: In May 2014, it received 2.4 million pounds of angel round financing; In March 2017, it received £5 million in Series A funding; In April 2019, it raised $42 million in Series B funding; In July 2021, it received US$80 million in Series C investment; In September 2021, it received an additional investment of US$17.5 million in its Series C round.
It is worth noting that Elvie's Series C financing is the first and largest financing in the first round of financing in the FemTech category. In addition to being a recognition of the brand's strength, it also proves that capital is optimistic about women's technology products in the long term. It is understood that FemTech (Female Technology) was proposed by Danish female entrepreneur Ida Tin in 2016. FemTech covers software, diagnosis, products and services related to women's health. The core is to use technology to solve the pain points of women's reproductive health, pregnancy and postpartum care, pelvic floor muscle and urethra health, and general health. According to Statista data, the global women's technology market is worth about US$51 billion in 2021. It is predicted that by 2030, the global women's technology market will be worth US$103 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 8.1% from 2022 to 2030. The female technology market is booming and is showing a steady growth trend. As a brand founded by women, Elvie has been deeply involved in the FemTech category and is committed to using good products to solve users' physiological problems. Focus on the "postpartum anxiety" group
In this era where there is no shortage of brands and traffic, product quality and technological innovation remain the core elements of brand growth. Since its inception, Elvie's target audience has focused on women with "postpartum anxiety", and its products are mainly aimed at women's health problems after childbirth, such as the urinary incontinence mentioned above, and the physiological problems that women encounter during breastfeeding. To address these two major problems, Elvie launched two flagship products, the "Kegel Trainer" and the "Wearable Smart Breast Pump." Elvie Trainer smart Kegel trainer, by connecting to a smart APP, allows users to get real-time training feedback, uses professional pelvic floor training methods to help women exercise correctly and improve control, and provides professional diet and life guidelines. With visual real-time monitoring and fun and efficient training, this product has won many awards around the world and is deeply loved by users. Elvie Pump smart breast pump is the world's first silent wearable breast pump. Its core design concept is small and concealed. The breast pump is designed to adapt to the size of a bra, and has no plugs or wires, allowing mothers to express milk in various scenarios. At the same time, this product is also connected to the APP, so users can set the rhythm and intensity of milk pumping, see the real-time milk volume, and track the milk pumping history. By turning on the smart breastfeeding mode, users can completely free their hands. In 2019, this wearable smart breast pump was named one of the 100 best inventions of the year by Time magazine. To adapt to changes in market demand, Elvie is also constantly expanding its product line:- In 2020, Elvie launched the Elvie Catch non-slip milk collection cup and the Elvie Curve wearable silicone breast pump.
- In 2021, Elvie launched the Elvie Stride, a hands-free, hospital-grade electric breast pump.
Data shows that Elvie has multiple products in the top 10 of Amazon's BSR list in both the automatic and manual breast pump markets, with monthly sales exceeding 1,000 orders, making it a well-established big seller on Amazon. In the early days of the brand, Elvie first entered the women's market with "postpartum health" equipment, using intelligent products to solve users' core pain points. In the future, its product research and development will run through the entire life cycle of women and become a comprehensive brand of women's health care. From the perspective of product strategy, Brand Ark believes that there are three reasons why Elvie's products are popular in the market: First, we insist on using "female thinking" to make products, from the founder's insight into female users, to the team's focus on postpartum pain points as the first priority in product research and development and design, and the introduction of a variety of effective solutions to postpartum physiological problems. The second is to make women's products "intelligent", taking the lead in launching intelligent breast pumps and trainers, and meeting important needs such as visualization, monitoring, and mobility through APP, allowing many postpartum women to truly free their hands. The third is to focus on "segmented populations", taking "postpartum health", a key issue in women's life cycle, as the entry point, to differentiate products in the blue ocean market and meet the health needs of the target audience. Powerful marketing to women
How to make a good product for women? Elvie wrote on its official website: Many important women's products or technologies are designed by men. They often cater to mainstream market ideas but do not truly understand women's needs or are women-led. On its official website, Elvie uses a lot of space and text to promote women's health, instilling in users the brand concept that is centered on women, and is committed to eliminating social misunderstandings and prejudices against women and giving women more rights. Similarweb data shows that the total visits to Elvie’s official website from August to October exceeded 1.2 million times. In terms of brand operation, Elvie uses soft implantation to occupy the minds of users, such as opening a blog section on the official website and uploading a lot of popular science articles about women's health knowledge, including postpartum recovery techniques, female intimacy guides, etc., to guide users to pay attention to physical health and enhance women's self-awareness. At the same time, Elvie is also good at using social platforms to communicate with users and conduct brand marketing. Brand Ark learned that Elvie has 373,000 followers on Instagram, and her posts are mainly graphic and text, mainly popular science graphics and text related to women's health. On Tik Tok, Elvie's official account has 107,000 followers and over one million likes on her videos. On the platform, Elvie is quite active in the FemTech community. Previously, a fitness blogger uploaded a video of her experiencing urinary incontinence while working out, which was reposted and followed by Elvie, and resonated with many women. In the comment area, many users shared the same experience. By speaking out on women's health issues, Elvie has gained the trust of many users. To date, there are many videos on Tik Tok with hundreds of thousands of views, sharing the process of users using the Elvie breast pump. In addition, Elvie actively organizes brand activities and participates in social welfare, gradually increasing brand awareness and working hard to bring women's smart products to the masses. In 2018, Elvie reached a cooperation with the British medical system NHS, allowing patients within the system to use its products for free. This not only reduced the financial pressure on postpartum women, but also strengthened the popularization of Kegel exercises around the world. On March 8, 2022, Elvie launched a global brand event called "Smart Bodies" to commemorate International Women's Day, aiming to convey how women's technology improves life and export the value and significance of women's bodies. In March 2022, a 3-meter-long outdoor billboard was launched in London: a British mother suffered from urinary incontinence while lifting weights. The topic #LeaksHappen quickly became a hot search on Twitter in the UK. By regularly conducting social marketing activities and sparking user dialogue and discussion, Elvie has brought the issue of women's health back into the public eye and broken the shackles of traditional concepts. This has not only increased the brand's voice in the female market, but also opened the door to an explosion in product sales.
Currently, the video playback volume of the topic #femalehealth on Tik Tok has exceeded 300 million. As more and more female users become more self-aware, the FemTech market will have great potential in the future.
From exploring women's usage scenarios from the user's perspective to taking women as the core throughout all aspects of the brand, Elvie has truly achieved the goal of starting with women, being used for women, and being achieved by women. Elvie's success in the market proves that the growth of female technology brands is still considerable. However, if startups want to replicate its success, there are still some problems that cannot be ignored, such as the "physiological shame" that exists among women and the difficulty in striking a balance in marketing female products. Although Elvie provides a relatively clear solution, to truly impress women, it still relies on the brand core of putting users first.
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