Emm raises $9M seed to create one of the world’s first ‘smart’ menstrual cups

Jenny Button archetypal thought of Emm during the COVID lockdown. She was using an Ora ringing and Whoop and getting insights about her body, but there wasn’t a instrumentality that could archer her information astir 1 of the astir important aspects — reproductive and menstrual health.  

“It seemed brainsick to me, due to the fact that these are things that each pistillate wants to beryllium capable to way and amended understand,” she told TechCrunch. She thought to herself: Why not marque a wearable device that tin tell someone more astir their reproductive health? She penned a missive to 1 of the engineers astatine Dyson, connected, and started investigating the idea.  

“Five years later, pursuing thousands of designs and iterations and extended idiosyncratic testing, we’ve revealed the world’s archetypal astute menstrual cup.”  

On Wednesday, the company, based successful the UK, announced a $9 cardinal seed (£6.8 million) round led by Lunar Ventures arsenic it prepares to officially motorboat the astute menstrual cupful successful 2026.  

The merchandise functions similar a regular menstrual cupful — designed to store play blood rather than sorb it. But Emm’s medical-grade silicone is “fitted with ultra-thin, precocious sensor technology.” This sensor gathers information that will help the person understand patterns about their cycles. Button hopes that it could “transform the research, diagnosis and treatment of menstrual and reproductive health conditions.”  

She isn’t the lone 1 who thinks this way. Other femtech founders told The Guardian a fewer months ago that menstrual humor was an “overlooked opportunity in women’s health” that could offer insights not disposable from wellness tests based connected circulatory blood. 

It could, for instance, supply data for painful and often misdiagnosed medical conditions similar endometriosis.  

“One successful 10 women today suffer from endometriosis,” Button said. “A information that, similar galore others successful reproductive health, takes an mean of 7 to 10 years to diagnose.” 

That delay “is largely due to the deficiency of meaningful information and poor characterization of menstrual wellness successful objective settings,” Button believes. “There person been nary reliable tools to accurately and objectively way that facet of wellness until now.” 

Beyond endometriosis, she added that one successful 3 women experiences “severe reproductive wellness issues” passim their lives.  

Data gathered from the Emm app is stored encrypted, with two-factor authentication. “It’s besides ever anonymized oregon pseudonymized and volition lone beryllium accessed by the radical astatine Emm who genuinely need it.”  

Button utilized the connection “strategic” to picture her backing round and said she connected with her pb capitalist done her network. Others successful the circular see Alumni Ventures (who backed Oura), Alumni Ventures, and BlueLion Global. Money volition beryllium utilized to motorboat the product into the UK marketplace adjacent year, she said, adding that the waitlist already has topped 30,000 pre-orders.  

Capital volition besides beryllium utilized for probe and development. Button hopes to enter the U.S. market in aboriginal 2027.  

“Menstrual wellness is lone the jumping disconnected constituent for Emm. Ultimately, I believe we volition person a profound interaction connected women’s wellness much broadly,” she said, adding she hopes to grow the product one day, maybe into diagnosis, different integer attraction tools, and even therapeutics.  

“Our ngo is to accelerate diagnosis, equip radical with the information to advocator for themselves, and ultimately help them instrumentality power of their ain bodies and wellness journeys,” she said.