Maven, a women’s health and family planning startup, announced that it has raised $45 million from investors — one of the largest funding rounds for a healthcare company helmed by a woman, according to Forbes.
Individual investors included actresses Reese Witherspoon, Natalie Portman and Mindy Kaling, as well as 23andMe co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki.
The company, started by Kate Ryder in 2014, provides millennial women with personalized health services through a mobile app, as well as postpartum resources for working moms such as breast milk shipping. Since launching the company, she is now the parent of a two-year-old and a three-year-old.
[Related: The Healthcare System Fails Working Millennial Women. This Entrepreneur Has an App to Change That]
This round has brought Maven’s total funding to a staggering $88 million. Ryder said part of the money will go toward starting Maven Pediatrics this year.
“If the first mindset shift was convincing people that women’s health matters, now I think we are in a second mindset shift,” Ryder told the business magazine. “Not only does it matter, but it is the core of a functional healthcare system.”
Her words might resonate with women outraged over ABC’s decision to pull a commercial during the Oscars from another women’s health startup showing a postpartum woman using the bathroom. The startup, Frida, took the television station to task on social media, garnering hundreds of thousands of supporters.
[Related: Frida’s Postpartum Ad Shows Dominance of Social Media Marketing]
“If you don’t help women and babies at the start of life, how do you build a functional healthcare system?” Ryder continued. “It’s not just a niche, it’s actually the core.”