EP #411 - Lea von Bidder: What Happened to AVA Women?

Timestamps:

4:56 - Having an investor back out

11:45 - Was the AVA exit a good or bad thing?

14:55 - Femtech stopped paying salaries and vendors

21:08 - Moving on to expeerly

30:29 - Is bootstrapping more stressful?

About Lea von Bidder:

Lea von Bidder is the co-founder and former CEO of AVA Women, a femtech startup advancing women’s reproductive health by bringing together artificial intelligence and clinical research. Since 2022 she’s also the founder and CEO at expeerly, a startup which makes it easy and efficient for companies to leverage the power of video without the hassle of production, editing, and distribution. She holds a MSc in Global Entrepreneurship from Emlyon Business School and Zhejiang University.

AVA Women garnered much fame and success in Switzerland from 2015 up until 2021 (more on that in Lea’s former episode with us), but unfortunately in 2021 they had their leading investor back out of their Series C round, which made the whole fundraising round fall apart. Since they did not have the money necessary to carry on for another 6-12 months, which would have been the time necessary to set up a new fundraising round, Lea and her co-founders decided to sell the company, and contacted CEOs they were personally acquainted with.  

Out of many potential buyers, they chose FemTech Health, because they believed in their vision to unite the fragmented femtech market. Sadly, FemTech didn’t not follow through with the promises they had made post-exit, and even stopped paying vendors and employees, resulting in a round of layoffs. At this point, Lea left the company herself.

She has since begun a new venture, expeerly, which she is bootstrapping. 

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