📍Southeast Asia Industry Timeline
- lindsaydavissg9
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
FemTech Association Asia's "Femtech Industry Development Timeline in Southeast Asia" captures the industry evolution from 2006 to 2025 and shows how entrepreneurship, research, policy, capital and consumer behaviour align in the region.
Southeast Asia’s femtech industry development has been shaped by academic research, public health priorities, regulatory constraints, deeply ingrained cultural norms, and an ecosystem of innovative leaders advancing women's health through technology solutions. Over the past two decades, the region has moved from isolated diagnostic solutions to a rapidly expanding market, with Asia now representing the third highest number of femtech companies worldwide.
The earliest chapter of femtech in Southeast Asia (SEA) was driven by academic research. Universities including National University Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technical University (NTU) created programmes to move PhD research projects from the lab to commercially-viable businesses, supported by mentorship, access to facilities, ecosystem connectivity, and investment. The region saw the founding of INEX Innovate in 2006 - recognised as the first femtech company in SEA - spun out of Singapore’s academic research ecosystem. This moment marked an important moment in SEA, separating women's health from general healthcare.
A decade later, between 2016 and 2018, institutional momentum accelerated as early AI and medicial devices emerged. HiCura Medical, one of the first AI-driven femtech startups in the region, launched following participation in NUS’s Graduate Research Innovation Programme (GRIP). Meanwhile, Biorithm, a wearable pregnancy monitoring ECG device, grew out of NTU. This startup's flagship, the FDA-submitted wearable device, Femom, enables at-home, non-invasive, medical-grade monitoring of fetal heart rate and uterine contractions to improve prenatal care, reduce hospital visits and prevent pregnancy complications. A key feature is the integration of the app directly with medical provider's digital platforms, allowing for non-stress tests to be conducted at home, offering convenience while reducing the burden on hospital resources.
Expansion of information available for consumers, especially through mobile apps, became more common in 2020 with the design of the OKY period app by UNICEF, later launched to support menstrual health education for adolescents. While not a startup per se, OKY played a critical role in normalising digital tools for menstrual and reproductive health across emerging markets in SEA.
While educational content was becoming more available, funding did not gain traction apart from a few seed rounds seen with AsmaraKu in Indonesia and subsequently Ease Healthcare in Singapore in 2021. However, direct-to-consumer solutions, specifically sexual health e-commerce platforms targeting women began to emerge, a signal of shifting consumer behaviour and demand for privacy-first, digital solutions that would attract more investment in the region in the future.
Industry visibility increased in 2021 with local and regional media outlets such as Channel News Asia and The Business Times publishing their first dedicated femtech industry articles, while the FemTech Association Asia was formally founded, providing a regional anchor for ecosystem development. Rice Media was the first platform to cover the work of FemTech Association Asia with the article, "Why Misdiagnosed Women Are Turning to Femtech Companies for Help"(January 2022).
Femtech solutions began integrating into healthcare systems, insurers and employer benefit structures around 2022. Hybrid women’s clinics such as Kindred in the Philippines combined digital platforms with physical care delivery, reflecting a regional preference for high-touch, convenient, discrete, trust-based healthcare models. Around the same time, diagnostics and clinical innovation gained traction. Raffles Medical Group launched Mastocheck® and Singapore’s first large-scale study on women’s psychological wellbeing and metabolic health was initiated by KKH Women’s and Children’s Hospital in collaboration with the Lien Foundation and AMILI.
Cross-border expansion also emerged as a marker of maturity in 2022. FathomX expanded from Singapore into Japan, demonstrating that Southeast Asian femtech solutions could scale beyond domestic markets. And the region's first femtech accelerator, AI4Health Asia by Villgro Philippines launched in 2023 to support reproductive health startups looking to grow across the entire region.
Policy has also played a role in Southeast Asia's progress. In 2021, the Thai government classified period products as cosmetics, encouraging The Pad Project and local menstrual health startup, Ira Concept, to work together to successfully advocate against period products becoming subject to an increase in sales tax from 7% to 30%, making them inaccessible to much of Thailand’s lower-income population and exacerbating an already prevalent problem. Singapore’s 2023 decision to permit social egg freezing represented a watershed moment for fertility innovation, catalysing growth across the fertility and reproductive health category. This change brought a number of new local startups paving the way, for example, Zora Health, which has since expanded into more holistic care - menopause and even men's health; GenerationPrime & Rhea Fertility in 2024 partnering to build an end-to-end pan-SEA fertility ecosystem; or Indonesia's Ovy Health moving into Singapore in 2026 with a focus not only on fertility, but women's longevity and healthspan.
The launch of FemTech Connect Asia in 2021 as the region’s first dedicated FemTech industry conference, marked a milestone in convening founders, investors, policymakers, and corporates under one roof. During this conference, Milieu Insight & FemTech Association Asia shared SEA’s first femtech consumer insights and market value report in 2024, providing much-needed data to inform pilots and MVP planning, capital allocation and UX/UI strategies.
International institutions also entered the SEA's femtech industry conversation. For the first time, in September 2024 the Milken Institute - Asia hosted a women’s health panel in Singapore, while in February 2025, HSBC partnered with FemTech Association Asia to create the Femtech Forum, with speakers including: Luuna and Blissmi Health from Hong Kong, Accenture, and Dr. Cuilin Zhang, head of the Global Centre for Asian Women's Health (NUS), all exploring the intersection of women’s health, innovation and investment.
Many of startups have hosted their own conferences in 2025. Examples include: "Flash Forward" by Sol, "Becoming: The Philippines Sexual Wellness Summit" by Unprude, "Midlife Festival" by Surety, and "Workplace Wellness Reimagined: Building Bridges to Better Health" by Lily of the Valley. Ovy Health also organised the first-ever IVF Fair in Indonesia in 2025.
The menopause category expanded significantly in 2025. Malaysia welcomed the launch of its first menopause solution, Menopause Asia, and saw the category expand in the Philippines and Singapore. Supporting healthy aging specifically at work moved to the mainstream with the release of a menopause whitepaper by NUS Medicine and HeyVenus, followed by the release of official Menopause Guidelines by KKH Hospital in Singapore in February 2026.
By February 2025, Southeast Asia’s FemTech landscape had grown from 41 startups (with nearly 60% based in Singapore) to 111 startups across the region, spanning over 10 women's health categories such as menstrual health, fertility, diagnostics, menopause, sexual health among others. Identifying the rapid rate of industry development in SEA, but limited ecosystem support and funding of these startups, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) released the report "Femtech Innovation in Southeast Asia: Unlocking Innovation for Women's Health" in December 2025.
What This Timeline Tells Us
Three insights stand out from Southeast Asia’s Femtech Industry Development:
1. Institutions matter. Universities, hospitals, NGOs, government agencies and FemTech Association Asia play a huge role in enabling femtech innovation in the region.
2. Trust precedes scale. Hybrid models, clinical validation and partnerships are critical in this region and prerequisites for adoption.
3. The next phase is regional more than local. With market maps in 2021 by fermata Inc and 2025 by FemTech Association Asia, open policy dialogue and cross-border collaboration underway, SEA is positioned to become a key market for startups looking to scale, new local startups launching and overseas companies looking to enter the market.
The current phase of femtech industry development in Southeast Asia in 2026 represents a shift from individual success stories to ongoing ecosystem acceleration. Follow FemTech Association Asia to learn more about the regional industry landscape and what the year ahead has in store.
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