Founders of frontier tech startups closing women’s health and safety gaps across Africa and Asia convened in Pretoria last week to kick off the first cohort of UNICEF Femtech Ventures – a five-year catalytic investment platform that aims to close women’s health gaps through innovation.
UNICEF Femtech Ventures, backed by the Government of Sweden and Temasek Foundation, gathers South Africa’s tech and business ecosystem, a mature market for addressing sexual and reproductive health and rights.
For millions of girls and women, access to quality care, trusted health information, safe mobility and digital economic opportunity remains uneven or out of reach. The inaugural UNICEF Femtech Ventures cohort marks a deliberate shift from documenting equity gaps to backing the entrepreneurs closing them.
This first cohort activates a global network of frontier tech startups in emerging economies, applying artificial intelligence (AI), data science and blockchain to address maternal and reproductive care, safe mobility, gender-based violence response and financial inclusion. Each one was selected from over 1,100 applications from 85 countries, more than half from Africa.
“The most important innovation for women and girls is already being built – by the entrepreneurs closest to the challenge. UNICEF Femtech Ventures backs them with the capital, technical support and partnerships to turn what works locally into access at scale,” said Thomas Davin, global director at the UNICEF Office of Innovation.
As well as business mentorship, the startups will receive up to US$100,000 in equity-free capital alongside a year of tailored technical assistance to test, strengthen and scale their solutions.
The African startups selected for the first UNICEF Femtech Ventures cohort are Beninese e-health platform Dotoh, Kenyan safe mobility service SafeRide by Esheria, Togolese maternal health chatbot HLlama by Umbaji, Tunisian e-health service Feel by Luna, maternal health chatbot DawaMom by Dawa Health, and Burkina Faso’s YouthShield by Kairos, a social media monitoring tool.
UNICEF Femtech Ventures will share progress updates from the cohort ahead of the opening of the second call for applications in Q4, building towards a portfolio designed to reach millions of women and girls. The UNICEF Office of Innovation is seeking additional partners to invest in frontier tech founders closing access gaps for women and girls in emerging markets.
