Emm Raises $9m Seed To Create One Of The World’s First ‘smart’ Menstrual Cups

Jenny Button first thought of Emm during nan COVID lockdown. She was using an Ora ringing and Whoop and getting insights about her body, but there wasn’t a instrumentality that could show her information astir 1 of nan astir important aspects — reproductive and menstrual health.  

“It seemed crazy to me, because these are things that each female wants to beryllium capable to way and amended understand,” she told TechCrunch. She thought to herself: Why not make a wearable device that tin tell someone more astir their reproductive health? She penned a missive to 1 of nan engineers astatine Dyson, connected, and started testing nan idea.  

“Five years later, pursuing thousands of designs and iterations and extended personification testing, we’ve revealed nan world’s first smart menstrual cup.”  

On Wednesday, nan company, based successful nan UK, announced a $9 cardinal seed (£6.8 million) round led by Lunar Ventures arsenic it prepares to officially motorboat nan smart menstrual cup successful 2026.  

The merchandise functions for illustration a regular menstrual cup — designed to store play blood rather than sorb it. But Emm’s medical-grade silicone is “fitted pinch ultra-thin, precocious sensor technology.” This sensor gathers information that will help the person understand patterns about their cycles. Button hopes that it could “transform nan research, test and treatment of menstrual and reproductive health conditions.”  

She isn’t the only 1 who thinks this way. Other femtech founders told The Guardian a fewer months ago that menstrual humor was an “overlooked opportunity in women’s health” that could offer insights not disposable from wellness tests based connected circulatory blood. 

It could, for instance, supply data for painful and often misdiagnosed medical conditions for illustration endometriosis.  

“One successful 10 women today suffer from endometriosis,” Button said. “A information that, for illustration galore others successful reproductive health, takes an mean of 7 to 10 years to diagnose.” 

That delay “is largely due to nan deficiency of meaningful information and poor characterization of menstrual wellness successful objective settings,” Button believes. “There person been nary reliable devices to accurately and objectively way that facet of wellness until now.” 

Beyond endometriosis, she added that one successful 3 women experiences “severe reproductive wellness issues” passim their lives.  

Data gathered from nan Emm app is stored encrypted, with two-factor authentication. “It’s besides ever anonymized aliases pseudonymized and will only beryllium accessed by nan group astatine Emm who genuinely need it.”  

Button utilized nan connection “strategic” to picture her backing round and said she connected with her lead investor done her network. Others successful nan information see Alumni Ventures (who backed Oura), Alumni Ventures, and BlueLion Global. Money will beryllium utilized to motorboat nan product into the UK marketplace adjacent year, she said, adding that nan waitlist already has topped 30,000 pre-orders.  

Capital will besides beryllium utilized for investigation and development. Button hopes to enter nan U.S. market in early 2027.  

“Menstrual wellness is only nan jumping disconnected constituent for Emm. Ultimately, I believe we will person a profound effect connected women’s wellness much broadly,” she said, adding she hopes to grow nan product one day, maybe into diagnosis, different integer attraction tools, and even therapeutics.  

“Our ngo is to accelerate diagnosis, equip group pinch nan information to advocator for themselves, and ultimately help them return power of their ain bodies and wellness journeys,” she said.