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

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

The company seeks to provide virtual care to patients throughout their entire reproductive life cycle, whether they are planning to start a family, pregnant, postpartum, or in menopause. Maven has raised a total of more than $425 million, and will use its new capital to invest in fertility benefits, expand its platform and leverage real-time data to deliver more proactive care to 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 while building their families. Ten years later, Maven covers the lives of about 17 million people through its contracts with health plans and employers, including companies like Amazon, Microsoft and AT&T.

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

The company was the first U.S. startup dedicated to women's health and families to reach “unicorn” status, or a valuation of more than $1 billion. 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.

Maven is focused on its product roadmap for now but aims to eventually go public, Ryder said. The company has earned a spot on the CNBC Disruptor 50 list for the past three years in a row.

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

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June of 2022, Maven found itself in the spotlight as it worked to help employers overcome emerging gaps in care. Rader called the ruling “a devastating move for U.S. health care” 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 its travel and healthcare benefits for pregnant women following the ruling.

That same year, venture capital investments in women's health companies rose 5%, according to a February report from Deloitte. Maven closed a $90 million funding round in November of that year. Project funding for the health technology market overall declined by 27% during the same period, the report said.

The amount of data available about women's health is also improving, thanks in part to companies like Maven. However, in a post-Roe world, Rader points out that the information is often bleak, especially as experts are “beginning to see a fuller picture of preventable death due to restricted access to care.”

“I think between more funding and research, and more data points from states, and from platforms like ours, you can start to point and paint a complete picture of everything that's going on that helps change policy for the better,” Ryder said. “The question is, frankly, when? And how many people need to suffer needlessly in the meantime?”