Swedish Fund Backs 10 African Women's Health Tech Startups

Dr. Joannie Bewa from Benin saw women in her country dying from preventable pregnancy complications and decided she couldn't wait for the system to change. So she built Dotoh, an AI-powered platform that brings maternal care to remote villages using encrypted health records and low-bandwidth video calls.

She's not alone. Sweden and UNICEF's Office of Innovation just selected 10 startups like hers from over 1,100 applications across 85 countries for their new Femtech Ventures program.

Each founder gets up to $100,000 in equity-free funding plus a year of mentorship to test and scale their solutions. Half the companies are from Africa, and six are led by women, well above typical tech investment numbers.

The need is staggering. A woman dies every two minutes from pregnancy-related causes, with 70% of those deaths happening in sub-Saharan Africa. Another 164 million women worldwide can't access contraception when they need it.

But these founders are already building solutions. In Kenya, SafeRide helps women navigate public transport safely because freedom from harassment is fundamental to reproductive health. In Togo, HLlama is an antenatal chatbot reaching expectant mothers in areas without clinics for miles.

A Tunisian startup called Feel by Luna created a voice-journaling app for the 190 million women with endometriosis, a painful condition that still takes 12 years on average to diagnose. In Zambia, DawaMom delivers AI-enabled maternal and sexual health services where formal healthcare systems don't reach.

The Ripple Effect

These aren't just health wins. When women access reproductive healthcare, entire communities grow stronger. Labor markets expand, economies stabilize, and countries become more resilient partners in global trade and prosperity.

Sweden's approach proves that catalytic funding works differently than traditional aid. By channeling public resources through UNICEF and backing local founders who understand their markets deeply, they're creating impact no single government could achieve alone.

The founders aren't waiting for permission or infrastructure. They're building safety-by-design solutions, testing them in challenging conditions, and proving what's possible when innovation comes from the communities that need it most.

The applications came from founders already building, already proving their concepts, already creating conditions for growth. Now they have the backing to scale solutions that could reach millions of women and children who've been left behind by conventional healthcare systems.

Stronger reproductive health for women means stronger futures for everyone.