From Journalist To Billion-Dollar CEO: How Kate Ryder Built The World's Largest Virtual Clinic For Women

About this episode

Kate Ryder shares her journey from journalist to CEO of Maven Clinic, the largest virtual care clinic for women's health.

A venture capitalist in London watched her closest friend disappear into postpartum depression. Texts, calls, visits, the slow realization that the transition into motherhood had no real support system around it. That was the moment Kate Ryder stopped writing about problems and started building for them. Twelve years later, Maven Clinic is the largest virtual care clinic for women's and family health in the world, working with thousands of employers across hundreds of countries, and Kate is one of the rare female founders to have taken a company to unicorn status. But the path there was anything but smooth. Her Series A was the worst fundraise of her life. Male tech investors didn't understand healthcare. They didn't understand women's health. They certainly didn't understand fertility, miscarriage, or postpartum depression as a market. Kate quickly figured out she was wasting her time on anyone who needed to be educated before they could be excited. The round was eventually led by Lauren Brueggen, a woman who happened to be pregnant with her third child and instantly understood the opportunity. Today Kate is taking Maven back to its roots with a direct-to-consumer platform…

People in this episode

Host: Laurie McGraw

Guest: Kate Ryder

Topics covered

• women's health
• entrepreneurship
• venture capital
• mental health
• virtual care
• female founders

Keywords

• Kate Ryder
• Maven Clinic
• women's health
• entrepreneurship
• venture capital
• postpartum depression
• female founders

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Maven Clinic, Oura

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