Women's Health Start-ups, still trying to crack the funding glass ceiling in Silicon Valley.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech, I'm Lily Dramalli.

Just 3% of digital health deals done in the US between 2011 and mid-2020 focused on women's

health. That's according to the Venture Fund Rock Health. Last year, Pitchbook reports, women's

health start-ups raised more than a billion dollars, which in relative terms isn't a lot.

Brittany Hawkins, co-founder and CEO of Alonzo Wellness, has navigated these waters.

Her platform focuses on women trying to manage the often painful, sometimes debilitating symptoms

of endometriosis. The condition, in which tissue, like the kind that lines the uterus,

grows outside the uterus, affects one in 10 women.

Often, they've experienced long, long road. I can only describe it as medical gaslighting.

Their pain hasn't been acknowledged. They haven't been really supported throughout their journey.

And therefore, they're just really frustrated. You go in and a doctor usually has only 15 minutes

to provide care for someone, and that's really not enough time to deliver what is needed.

So, they're kind of moved into the chronic pain category, and that's just not something that's easy

to prescribe in a 15-minute conversation. Why do you think it's hard for people to talk about

women's health? I feel like we need to unravel years and years of societal conditioning.

But I think it's just uncomfortable, and I think even more

sense things have shifted in the reproductive health space. One of the pain

modulators for endometriosis is contraceptive hormones that you can help moderate your

actual cycle, so it doesn't perpetuate your endometriosis. This alone is becoming a contentious

conversation. You know, the second it hits the reproductive track, it becomes politicized,

it becomes personal, it becomes, you know, some people might find it gross, and so you have to really

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