6.9 C
Helsinki
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Swedish femtech startup closed over €450K from many investors to contribute to women’s health care

- Advertisement -

Stockholm-based medical mobile application Ella raised over 450 thousand euros (over 4.5MSEK) which brings a total of €1M to the company considering its closure of an investment round in August 2021. The femtech startup is getting ready to launch the first version of the app that may be a guide for women during and after pregnancy. The company is owned and provided by Her Company AB and is now backed by Johan Bloom and Lars Lindgren at Add Health Media, Joo Emmy Sundström, and many more.

The FemTech company brings in 10.5 million – now Ella will revolutionize the neglected women’s health care

This spring, the first version of the medical mobile application Ella will be launched, which will help prevent and treat problems during and after pregnancy. Women’s health is a historically neglected area, but in recent years it has received increasing attention thanks to the growing trend within FemTech. Ella is now backed by several investors who want to contribute to changing women’s health care.

Investors see Ella’s value and potential

In August 2021, Ella closed an investment round of just over SEK 6 million, and most recently in March 2022, a round of over 4.5 million was closed. Among those who have invested in the latest round are Johan Bloom and Lars Lindgren at Add Health Media, and Joo Emmy Sundström who has invested in the tech-driven health and service companies Doktor.se and Dryft.

Ninke Liebert, a construction lawyer with solid experience in public administration, also makes investments, together with Anders F. Börjesson, a business lawyer active in venture capital investments, who was attracted to Ella through her own experiences of Swedish maternity care. Ella is also backed by Monika Lindquist, Marketing and Communications Director at Visual Art, and Johan Hasselblad, Head of Funding & Sustainability at Hypoteket.

The latest round also includes Louise Engwall Edholm, owner and CEO of Engco Tech Invest, who is passionate about women’s health and puts her finger on Ella’s value based on her personal experiences.

Ella“As an investor, I would like to support businesses with female founders and especially in health tech. Women’s health is also something I am passionate about and happy to get involved in.

I myself am the mother of two boys and would have liked Ella to have been there during my pregnancies and given me support through special preventive physiotherapy.

I hope and believe that Ella can help women during a very important and in many ways fragile and transformative period in life,” says Louise Engwall Edholm.

Praise both by the business community and by the people

Since the company was formed, Ella has been hand-picked by both  SEB Innovation Forum , SHIFT and praised by the name-heavy jury in the 60SecondPitch competition organized by Vaam with the tech profile Josef Fallesen behind the wheel.

Ella, Northzone, Pär-Jörgen Pärson

“Ella is really good. If Ella is internationally capable, they have a unique chance because the Swedish midwifery and maternity care role is on the rise,” says Pär-Jörgen Pärson from Northzone, jury member in 60SecondPitch where Ella was crowned the winner.

The jury also consisted of Susanne Najafi, Johnny Warström, Tatiana Shalalvand, Pernilla Ramslöv and Saeid Esmaeilzadeh. In addition to the jury win, Ella also received prizes worth SEK 400,000 and the honorable title “People’s Vote”.

Get help with pregnancy-related problems directly on your mobile

Ella is a medical app whose purpose is to supplement both maternity care and aftercare. In the app, pregnant and newly delivered women will be assigned a personal physiotherapist who follows the women throughout the pregnancy and the time after the birth.

Together with his physiotherapist, an individualized plan is created with digital care meetings and evidence-based training programs that are continuously updated as conditions change. The programs can both prevent and treat pregnancy-related ailments, affecting at least 90% of everyone who undergoes a pregnancy to some extent, and also helps the woman reach the recommended amount of physical activity.

The vision with Ella is to offer support from several different care professions, where the psychologist and dietitian are next in line.

Ella, Emelie Hollsten“The unique thing about Ella, unlike online doctors, is that we really take advantage of the benefits of technology. We build smart algorithms and functions that both create good opportunities for scalability and a great value for the user, far beyond care meetings,” says Emelie Hollsten, CEO and founder of Ella.

In the app, there will in future be articles, podcasts and courses so that there is something new to learn or discover every day. An AI is also being developed that predicts discomfort and recommends the right care at the right time.

“What drives us is to be able to offer safe and accessible support to women who are pregnant or have just given birth. We want to help predict, prevent and treat the most common physical and mental ailments, which unfortunately today all too often fall between the cracks,” says Emelie Hollsten.

Owned and managed by women – with their ear to the asphalt

The founding team behind Ella consists of a physiotherapist, dietitian, midwife and an experienced entrepreneur and parent coach. The founders today use their platforms in social media to educate in health and parenting, and hope to be able to contribute even more through Ella.

“As a former elite gymnast, health has always been a burning interest in me. Thanks to a depression during my teens, I understood early on the value of both physical and mental health and how important it is that we take care of ourselves. Now that I am a mother, my passion for health has married the love of motherhood. Ella is truly my dream,” says Emelie Hollsten, founder and CEO, 60,000 followers on Instagram.


Ella, Stina Algulin“I love to inspire people to good and healthy food, cooked in a simple way. I notice in my profession that many people struggle with it and are afraid of certain types of food. I want to get rid of that fear and spread the joy of food. Food should be a wonderful part of life and give us everything we need to feel as good as possible,” says Stina Algulin, co-founder and dietitian, 20,000 followers on Instagram.


Ella, Asabea Britton“I am passionate about spreading knowledge about and normalizing childbirth, breastfeeding and the close respectful relationship between parent and child. What I want most is that I can help parents, especially women, to dare to take control of their births and parenthood,” says Asabea Britton, co-founder and midwife, 80,000 followers on Instagram.


Getting access to a physiotherapist during and after pregnancy should be as obvious as getting help with rehab after a common sports injury. The vast majority suffer from musculoskeletal disorders to some extent in connection with a pregnancy, something that we can both treat and in some cases prevent with the help of individualized physiotherapy,” says Frida Johnson, co-founder, physiotherapist and operations manager at Ella.

A quality-assured and medical-technical product

Ella will be CE marked at launch this spring. This means that the app is a quality-assured medical technology product.

“We want to be a care provider that both prevents and treats ailments and complications during pregnancy and postpartum. A CE marking means that all advice and programs in Ella are evidence-based and that the entire product is quality-assured according to European standards for medical devices,” says Frida Johnson.

- Advertisement -
Nurcin Metingil
Nurcin Metingil
A permanent student, a passionate first reader and nowadays doing master’s degree in Publishing Management. Beside these, I am up for games! I have been playing games since I was 6. Now, I am whispering "Business. Business. Numbers. Is this working?"

Related News

Stay Connected

20,216FansLike
2,154FollowersFollow
22,991FollowersFollow
1,220SubscribersSubscribe

Latest News