Exclusive: Consumer women's health Intrinsic notches $15M
- Aaron Weitzman, author of Axios Pro: Health Tech Deals

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
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.