When Joanna Strober turned 47, she started having difficulty sleeping.
When she consulted some of her doctors, Strober said they prescribed sleeping pills that could become addictive, suggested she see a psychiatrist or told her to just “live with it.” She didn’t think it could be hormone-related because, as she explained it, she was still getting her monthly cycle.
It took her a year to find a menopause specialist. Although this was “a very expensive doctor,” who did not take insurance,” the physician was able to link her issues to hormones in one visit. She prescribed Strober hormone replacement therapy (HRT) that helped her sleep better within a week.
During the time she was seeking relief, she confided in many of her female friends and colleagues. As it turned out, they were also experiencing challenges with getting a good night’s sleep. They told her they were also getting misdiagnosed and having trouble getting some relief, she said.
That catalyzed her to think about starting a wellness company to help women going through menopause. Every day, close to 6,000 women in North America reach menopause. That translates into more than two million women each year.
The idea evolved into a startup she launched last year, Menlo Park-based Midi Health. Several of the women Strober confided in and turned to for support became co-founders: Kathleen Jordan, a physician who serves as chief medical officer; Sharon Meers, who serves as CFO; Jill Herzig, chief brand officer and Cindy Gentry, chief commercial officer.
In June, they launched a virtual clinic in June to start serving women in California. After recently receiving $14 million in funding, Strober said Midi Health plans to expand its coverage area across the country. It expects to do this by launching partnerships with hospital systems and employers that are looking to facilitate wellbeing in their female employees at this life stage.
The company does not have any future plans for brick-and-mortar clinics, because the co-founders believe that “midlife care is uniquely suited to telehealth,” Strober said.
“The value of talking to Midi specialists is both that the practitioners are trained specifically in midlife care and they have time to address these issues in the (virtual) visits,” she said. “Often doctor visits are rushed and they don't have the time that it takes to address these issues."
Strober isn't new to either entrepreneurship or health care. In 2013, she co-founded Kurbo Health, a startup that created a digital coaching platform to help obese children lose weight. Five years after its launch, Weight Watchers acquired the company in 2018 for an undisclosed amount.
With Midi, Strober and her co-founders are competing with other companies serving women throughout menopause, including two New York City-based companies, Alloy and Maven Clinic, the latter of which has raised nearly $293 million in backing.
Midi offers its users a tailored treatment program, ranging from lifestyle coaching to supplements to drugs. Midi has insurance contracts with all the major carriers in California and plans to expand that network nationwide in early 2023, Strober said.
The company differentiates itself by accepting insurance, while some physicians and entities serving this demographic don’t, Strober said. It also offers home delivery of prescriptions and supplements, which are provided without a cost markup, she said. Instead, Midi collaborates with pharmacies to provide therapies that are covered by insurance. All of these startups hope to tap into a global menopause market that was valued at more than $15 billion in 2021.
On Oct. 27, the company announced its first seed round, $14 million in backing that was led by Felicis Ventures and SemperVirens Venture Capital. Midi Health also got investments from some influential female investors in health and technology, including the Wojcicki sisters: Susan, who is CEO if YouTube, and Anne, the co-founder and CEO of 23andMe.
"Healthcare for women aged 40+ is one of the largest segments of healthcare that has not been transformed by digital health," Victoria Treyger, general partner at Felicis, said in a statement. "The power of Midi's B2B2C model is that by partnering with health systems and employers, Midi can reach tens of thousands of women at scale in rural and urban geographies."
