Women's health startup Maven Clinic raises $1.7 billion valuation

Maven Clinic, a women's and family healthcare startup, announced Tuesday that it closed a $125 million funding round at a valuation of $1.7 billion.

The company seeks to offer patients virtual care throughout their reproductive life cycle, whether they are planning a family, pregnant, postpartum or menopause. Maven has raised a total of more than $425 million and will use its fresh capital to invest in its fertility benefits, expand its platform, and leverage real-time data to provide more proactive care to its members.

Maven CEO Kate Ryder told CNBC that she founded the company in 2014 after watching her friends struggle to find the support they needed as they started their families. Ten years later, Maven covers about 17 million lives through its contracts with health plans and employers, including companies like Amazon, microsoft and AT&T.

“Digital health is just at the beginning,” Ryder told CNBC.

The company was the first American startup dedicated to women's and family health to achieve “unicorn” status, or a valuation of more than $1 billion. Some of Maven's investors include companies like General Catalyst, Sequoia, and Oak HC/FT, as well as celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Mindy Kaling, and Reese Witherspoon.

Ryder said Maven is focusing on its product roadmap for now, but its goal is to go public eventually. The company has secured a spot on the CNBC Disruptor 50 list for the last three years in a row.

Women's health, especially reproductive health, is a hot topic in the upcoming election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Ryder said Maven is open to sharing data and his perspective on policy regardless of which administration wins.

After the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Maven found herself in the spotlight as she worked to help employers bridge emerging gaps in care. Ryder called the ruling a “devastating step backwards for healthcare in the United States” in a blog post at the time, adding that his clients could use Maven to reimburse patients for travel across state lines.

The company saw a 67% month-over-month increase in interest in travel and healthcare benefits for pregnant people after the ruling.

That same year, venture investments in women's health companies increased 5%, according to a February report from Deloitte. Maven closed a $90 million funding round in November. Venture funding for the overall health technology market fell 27% during the same period, according to the report.

The amount of data available on women's health is also improving, in part thanks to companies like Maven. However, in a post-Roe world, Ryder notes that the data is often bleak, especially as experts are “beginning to see a more complete picture of preventable deaths due to restricted access to care.”

“I think the more funding and research, the more data points from states, from platforms like ours, you can start to pinpoint and paint a full picture of everything that's happening that helps improve policy,” Ryder said. “The question is, to be honest, when? And how many more people will have to suffer unnecessarily in the meantime?”