Exclusive: Consumer women's health Intrinsic notches $15M

Intrinsic, a women's retail health and personal care products company, raised $15 million in new funding, CEO Yadin Shemmer tells Aaron exclusively.

Why it matters: Proceeds in the form of equity will go toward acquiring women's consumer health brands.

Details: The round featured investors FCA Venture Partners and MAP Investco, with participation from existing investors Define Ventures, Link Ventures, and Redesign Health.

• New investors comprised roughly 50% of the capital raised in this round.
• The company declined to delineate what round of funding this was.
• The company, which has a portfolio of brands focused on mothers in the prenatal and postpartum phases, has raised $128 million total since being founded in 2021.

How it works: Intrinsic acquires consumer health brands, an umbrella term encompassing consumer packaged good products, over-the-counter medications and medical devices.

• These are the types of brands you would typically find sold in the front of a pharmacy or through a physician's office.
• Its current portfolio includes LaVie, over-the-counter lactation massagers; Mommy Knows Best, a brand of lactation supplements to support low milk supply; and pumping bra brand PumpStrap, among others.

What's next: "We want to buy brands that help women with issues and conditions specific to women and that mostly affect women," Shemmer says.

• Areas of need and focus will be where a woman is the main caregiver, for either a child or aging parent.
• "There are hundreds of disease states that fall into those buckets, where things are under-studied, under-treated, and stigmatized by the medical system that forces them to go over the counter to find solutions on their own," he says.
• Menopause, period and pelvic floor disorders, are large, unmet needs the company will focus on.

Of note: Any medical devices the company acquires would be FDA-cleared, Shemmer says.

• "We don't take any FDA approval risk in our business," he notes. "We are acquiring brands that are already in market and addressing various need states in women's health."

Between the lines: Today's dealmaking environment is particularly favorable to the buy-side, Shemmer says, "because of the dislocation of capital markets."

• The runway of this most recent fundraise depends on what opportunities the company sees in the market.

Be smart: Recall women's care tech company FemTec Health, which promised to revolutionize women's health care — but struggled to deliver on that lofty mission.

• FemTec acquired a string of companies straddling consumer and wellness starting in 2019 — only to cut staff and field legal recourse from leaders of one of those acquired subsidiaries in January.

The big picture: Intrinsic is riding the wave of retail health care, increasingly coming into focus.

• Amazon, Walmart, CVS, Dollar General and other players are elbowing their way into primary care, pushing a customized consumer experience driven by digital health products.