What happened when one Japanese startup talked about women’s sexual health

Some things are supposed to be only whispered about in Japan.

But startups are about breaking taboos and pushing boundaries, and making the world a bit better when they do it.

Today's we sit down with Amina Sugimoto of Fermata, and we talk about how quickly and radically the FemTech movement is changing Japan's conversations, attitudes, and even public policy around women's health.

It turns out things are both much worse and much better than you probably imagine.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

Why VCs have been hesitant to invest in FemTech How FemTech is defined in Japan, and what makes a "FemTech product" FemTech as a B2B business in Japan Japanese enterprise's, hesitant moves into FemTech Discussing sexual pleasure with Isetan's conservative management and customers How the FemTech label is opening up a new conversation about women's health in Japan FemTech as a national movement Why it is hard to get FemTech devices approved in Japan The future of FemTech in Japan What we need in addition to FemTech to really make a difference #WereNotSalmon

Links from the Founders

Everything you wanted to know about Fermata

Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan. Straight Talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. I love it when a conversation takes me by surprise. I usually already know the guests I'm interviewing and I do my research ahead of time. So, I generally know what to expect from these conversations. But every once in a while things head off in a completely different direction and the facts on the ground take me by surprise. Today is one of those conversations. Today we sit down with an Amina Sugimoto, the founder of Japanese FemTech powerhouse Fermata, and we talk about how Japanese attitudes towards women's health are changing and how the FemTech movement is a driving force behind that change. Fermata speaks directly and candidly about topics that Japanese society has always preferred to whisper about. She's worked with industry, government, and consumers to change laws and attitudes and is seeing real progress. Amina and I talk about how to get laws changed in Japan, what happens when women start frank conversations about their health and sexual needs. And what she learned by selling vibrators to Isetan department stores super conservative shoppers. But you know, Amina tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Amina Sugimoto of Fermata, one of the leaders of consumer FemTech in Japan. Amina: Thank you. Tim: And thanks for sitting down with me. Amina: Of course, of course. It's my pleasure. Tim: I gave a really brief explanation of what Fermata is and I’m sure you can do a much better job than I can. So, what is Fermata? Amina: So, we initially started as a research group within the Venture Capital. Tim: Mistletoe, right? Amina: Yeah. Ran by [inaudible 00:02:16]. There is this one company that came across two things that I found out. One is not many venture capitalists were interested in this emerging new technology, our women's health. And then two, there are not many companies that instead of actually focusing on how to actually create industry brand a product, Tim: So, at Mistletoe were you trying to get them to invest in these FemTech companies? And Amina: So initially, yes. I still remember today that we were sitting around in the table and there's one company from the US that's actually called Modern Fertility. Now, what they did is they brought in existing technology of measuring AMA's hormone, which basically we can measure how much eggs we've got left. This technology is available at clinics in the name of marriage checks in Japan. So, basically before you get married, you get the test. And if you can't get pregnant anymore, oftentimes that marriage just no longer. Tim: Wow, that's kind of dark. Amina: But what they did is that bring that technology to the hands of women. And what if we get to find out how long are we going to be pregnant at the age of, I don't know, 25, 30? Maybe then we can decide our own career. And that information doesn't have to be shared by anyone. I thought that that product was amazing. Unfortunately not many who were sitting at the table found it interesting. So initially, Mistletoe, who was running the fund at the time and came up to me and said, if you think there's a potential for this market, why don't you create a research group that focus around FemTech to let people learn more about FemTech? Tim: That seems like kind of a strange move for a VC. If you have an interesting market, an interesting product, a company that is seeking investment, a venture partner who's excited about the investment, why form a research group? Amina: Well, the problem is exactly that. I mean, only 5% of the global level investors are female. And oftentimes the question I get asked is that what's the problem that company is trying to solve? Or what's the business model? How is it going to make money? The things that for women is so obvious that there is need. Tim: Well, actually let's take a step back just so our whole audience understands what exactly is FemTech? Where do you draw the lines around what FemTech? Amina: So, FemTech is a term that came around in 2012, and that person who created this term is called Miss Ida Tin, started her company in Germany called Clue. This is the app and it tracks menstruation. And when she tried to get fundraising, she struggled quite a bit because not many investors understood why it's so useful to have an app tracking period and how that would make money. Exactly the same problem that I had at Mistletoe. It's just that there's an obvious need, but it's not obvious for certain people. Tim: Sure, sure. Amina: So, what she did was she came up with this term FemTech and just by creating this term is all of a sudden become some sort of a new industry, a blue ocean, and an investor slowly started to getting interested instead of actually saying, oh, this is a product for menstruation. It's easier to say it's Femtech. Tim: She created a category. Amina: Exactly, exactly Tim: Category. So, what is considered, what's inside that FemTech box? Amina: Good question. So, a lot of different definitions are out there and in Japan now, the way people use FemTechs, they're focusing on menstrual cups, underwear, not so much tech, but the way Fermata defines it is a product that basically solves women only or diseases that exist in men, but women have slightly different prevalence rate or different symptoms. So, for example, women's specific will be fertility and menstruation and menopause, but also osteoporosis, dementia, we don't really know why, but the previous rate among women is higher. Tim: So, broadly speaking, it's not just the technology or the products, it is the whole research ecosystem. Amina: Yeah, yeah. A lot of these product now are B2C but also B2B infertility clinics and treatments using AI and so forth. So, it's really varies depending on from which angle you look at. Tim: Well, I guess all of the investment categories are kind of like that, right. So, that makes sense. Now before the interview I had a great tour of your store downstairs. It's fascinating. So, Fermata specifically… Amina: So, we started in 2019. We initially started off trying to build a product, but then we quickly realize that this is an area where even if you come up with a really good product, difficult to sell because there's no market. Women ourselves don't even notice what sort of unmet needs that we have. So, what we do, we have two businesses that we are running simultaneously, B2B business and B2C business B2C. We deliver products to these consumers will help them identify their own unmet needs. We collect data from these consumers. Tim: So, what kind of products? Amina: So, FemTech products. Tim: Kind of going in a circle with that? No, I mean, can you give like, just specific examples of like some of the products you're selling and… Amina: So for example, this is a product called pelvic trainer from the UK. You basically apply this little device into the slightly vagina and we can actually control our pelvic muscle. And there is an app that you can download and in the app there are different games that you can actually play to strengthen your pelvic muscle. And as a result it basically prevent incontinence. Tim: That makes perfect sense. And it also makes sense why it'd be hard to get most male VCs to invest in it. No, I mean, there's no discrimination per see. It's just one of the cardinal rules of investing is you invest in what you know. Amina: Yeah, exactly. So, I'm totally again, sort of saying, it's not a… Tim: I can see why it's so difficult to get funding for a lot of these companies and why the FemTech category is a huge help for that. Amina: So, like women don't even know, like quite often, like we ask women, do you know what happens if we don't train our pelvic muscle after a certain age? They're like, no idea. And we didn't really get taught. How much do we bleed during menstruation? We don't even get taught. But anyway we have a consumer business, but also we have B2B business and that's our 80% of our sales come from that. What we do is we help companies in Japan develop products in this area. They have technologies that they can apply to new field. They just don't know how, or they don't have an idea. Tim: So, what kind of companies are interested in developing these kind of products? Are they electronics companies? Are they…? Amina: I can't companies say the details, but yes. Electronic companies, supplement companies, food companies, and I think there's a social as well as global pressure for especially Japanese big public companies to do something around this field.