Investment Notes: Samphire
A behind-the-scenes look at why AfterWork Ventures are doubling down on this medtech on a mission
Most women experience some discomfort during menstruation, especially on the first day. But for up to 30% of women, the pain and mood symptoms are intense enough to disrupt their life for about a week, every single month1. This is a big, regular problem, without a clear solution. Until now.
Samphire is a female-founded and run company leading the way in treating menstrual cycle-related pain, low mood and fatigue symptoms caused by dysmenorrhea (menstrual cramps) and premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Backed by neuroscience, their first product, the Nettle™ device, uses non-invasive neuromodulation to directly target regions of the brain responsible for menstrual symptoms, to alleviate pain and improve mood symptoms.
Co-founders Dr. Emilė Radytė and Alex Cook were members of the AfterWork community, and in 2021, the AfterWork team jumped at the opportunity to be first believers in their vision to end unnecessary suffering in women. Since then, they have moved mountains to not only build, test and regulate their product, but to bring it successfully to market in the UK and Europe. Samphire sold out the first drop of their pre-sales campaign within just 24 hours of launching! But more on their momentum later…
Over the years, we’ve witnessed firsthand the team’s ability to deliver and we couldn’t be happier to continue supporting them on their journey to disrupt women’s health. With a successful R&D phase complete, Samphire is ready to progress from launch into a sales and marketing mode of operation. And with a recently closed $5M USD seed round, led by Fortify Ventures and Inventure, they are well placed to do this. Here, we unpack why we’ve invested in Samphire twice.
The problem remains large and unsolved
Historically, issues pertaining to women’s health have been largely ignored by science, medicine, and industry. Even today, the vast majority of medical wearables are designed by men, and made for men. Up to 90% of women globally have clinically-recognised pain, mood, or fatigue during their periods and up to 30% have extremely severe symptoms that range from excruciating pain levels or extreme mental health issues to potential suicidality2.
Currently, there are no reasonable treatment options for women to find relief. Birth control or sterilisation will prevent dysmenorrhea and PMS by interrupting the menstrual cycle, but there are significant side effects; and of course it prevents patients from having children. When it comes to symptom management, there are no treatment options that are truly effective for dysmenorrhea and premenstrual syndrome (PMS); and none are geared specifically towards these conditions. Patients must choose from slow-acting, long-term use antidepressants or over-the-counter pain relief medications; like Ibuprofen or Naproxen. Alternatively, they can go for drugs that are meant to improve cramps and uterine contractions (like antispasmodic drugs or nitroglycerin) or try hormonal treatments like oestrogen and progesterone. However, efficacy varies; and there are increasing tailwinds of women searching for drug- and hormone-free solutions that would still be clinically tested, effective and safe.
In short, there are no effective treatment options tailored to these conditions. Yet fortunately, women’s health is finally coming into focus. The women' s health/femtech market is worth close to $1 trillion USD, and women are already spending $32.5 billion USD a year on health-related medical products3. On top of that, there’s been a recent surge in wearable tech with offers such as Flow Neuroscience and Oura rings making inroads into developing this market.
A killer product that can change lives
Nettle™ is a medical-grade neuromodulation wearable for PMS and menstrual pain. Using advanced neurotechnology, Nettle™ improves menstrual cycle health by transforming the brain’s neural networks. Users experience results in one cycle and can regain control over their life in three - and all it takes is just 20 minutes a day, 5 days a month. It’s the world’s first medical-grade, drug and hormone-free solution for managing PMS and menstrual pain and is backed by 30 years of clinical research.
Within just three years, Samphire has built, clinically validated Nettle™ and completed full regulatory clearances to enter the UK and EU markets as a Class IIa medical device, safe and effective for the clinical reduction of menstrual pain and improvement of PMS symptoms. Over the next few years they plan to enter the US via the FDA clearance process and receive reimbursement by insurance for their product across the largest healthcare markets in the world. This would dramatically impact adoption.
"We're not the first mover in neurotechnology; but we are the first ones to have heard women and their need for scientifically-driven solutions that are based in the brain. It is quite shocking how few innovative solutions there are for women's needs outside of the fertility space, even though menstrual, mental health and hormonal needs impact women (and all individuals assigned female at birth) throughout their lives."
Emilė Radytė, PhD, Samphire’s co-founder and CEO
The team are moving fast - and showing no signs of slowing down
Since we have joined the Samphire journey, they have built a product (after no less than 70 iterations), been awarded a UK Research and Innovation grant, secured a mass manufacturing partner, built a strong and engaged community of users, navigated regulatory hurdles, built a scientific board, as well as a business board of advisors, derisked the clinical pathway with powerful evidence and hired new team members, with timely superpowers. Most recently, Samphire was accepted into the NHS Innovation Accelerator, a program designed to bring the best healthcare innovations into the UK’s National Health Service at top speed (18-24 months instead of the standard 10 years).
On the product side, usability trials were a success achieving 92%+ SUS scores (a score used to assess whether a medical device can be used in the home by a layperson, 68% being the threshold); and efficacy results proving that Nettle™ outperforms standard treatments, with 72% of users seeing pain relief within a single month, and 67% of people seeing clinical improvements in their PMS symptoms after just 5 sessions.
As they move from an R&D to a marketing mode, the team are launching a symptom tracking app, that helps add scientific rigour to the tracking process and introduce the concept of neuroscience to a captive audience keen to learn more about their health, and manage it with Nettle™’s support.
They have united a community that cares and have overcome an initial question we had around receptivity
Samphire has built an impressive organic following and achieved significant brand awareness. Their ease in selling out their first drop can be attributed to their 15,000 strong waitlist. This is a great early evidence point for the market’s receptiveness to the Nettle™ headband. Based on the initial success, the team is launching further drops of units (total of 800 additional units) later this year.
From the get go, the team put significant effort into growing their social media reach (22k+ organic followers) and have seen recent successes with viral growth and posts. They have made it a priority to spend time with sufferers, building an intimate relationship to ensure they become early adopters. This passionate cohort of advocates have grown with the brand and feel an emotional connection to Samphire’s vision. And this translates to product experience too. In fact, all current usability testers have referred the device to at least one person.
Samphire has built an impressive organic following and achieved significant brand awareness. Their ease in selling out their first drop can be attributed to their 15,000 strong waitlist. This is a great early evidence point for the market’s receptiveness to the Nettle™ headband. Based on the initial success, the team is launching further drops of units (total of 800 additional units) later this year.
From the get go, the team put significant effort into growing their social media reach (22k+ organic followers) and have seen recent successes with viral growth and posts. They have made it a priority to spend time with sufferers, building an intimate relationship to ensure they become early adopters. This passionate cohort of advocates have grown with the brand and feel an emotional connection to Samphire’s vision. And this translates to product experience too. In fact, all current usability testers have referred the device to at least one person. Impressively, the word ‘life-changing’ are a common feature of their product reviews.
Questions we had for the team
1. How does Samphire evolve beyond its first product, Nettle™?
Since inception, Samphire has had aspirations to solve women’s health issues, beyond menstruation. As they move into this next phase of development, their priority is to validate the huge menstrual pain, mood and symptoms market, via the Nettle™ product. Once they have found product market fit, they will have gained the right to help women address more of their health concerns; most of which have been ignored by mainstream pharmaceuticals and healthcare. The Samphire app, which is live now, has a symptom tracking feature that allows them to amass the data needed to predict other conditions, such as postpartum depression and perimenopausal vasomotor symptoms (like hot flushes and anxiety). Then with their academic credentials, they are well placed to develop science-backed solutions for these conditions. The combination of data and targeted neurotechnology will help Samphire expand into a suite of products that are focused on alleviating women’s health issues.
2. How do you approach scaling a deeptech business?
At a high level, the speed and number of iterations that you get with a deeptech (or a research and IP-based product) are far more infrequent compared to a SaaS product. This means that both the time and costs of hypotheses, and being wrong, is much higher. On the plus side, the rewards of the initial high risk are sweet; including better overall product defensibility, less competition and the subsequent ability to enjoy higher market penetration.
When thinking about scaling a deeptech business, the Samphire team focused on operationalising 3 key motions.
First, harnessing a strong understanding of their target and their needs. It’s a priority for a business like Samphire to have an intimate understanding of the market - as a superficial understanding of your target will lead to wrong hypotheses and pivoting down the line is harder with a deep tech product. From the get go, the team has included their target every step of the way; from naming, to product design to symptom tracking and research.
The next fundamental to get in place is an effective, efficient path from academia to industry. For Samphire, this looked like leveraging their strong relationships with academia and using them to create robust clinical trials, quickly and cheaply.
Finally, the team found a way to operationalise their deep knowledge of the regulatory space. Through expert knowledge in medical technology with proprietary IP, the team have been able to move through the UK/EU certification process 3x faster through certifications than comparable businesses.
How we built conviction
Over the last three years, the team have consistently proved that they are strategic, skilful thinkers capable of navigating a terse regulatory environment and stringent scientific standards, while building a tight-knit community, who care deeply about their vision to end the unnecessary suffering of women. These assets, alongside their thoughtful approach to scaling a deeptech business, gives the Samphire team scope, capability and permission to continue innovating in this much-overlooked problem space. We are thrilled to continue supporting Samphire on their journey to transform the experience of pain for women, in menstrual cycles and beyond.