UK biowearable technology start-up Emm has raised $9m in an oversubscribed seed round to bring its smart menstrual cup and connected app to market.

Creating a new category of smart menstrual care, Emm should help users understand their individual menstrual baseline and track key metrics for personalised, actionable insights into their menstrual health.

The funding will support Emm in bringing this to market, transforming how people experience and understand their cycles and, by extension, their bodies. It will also accelerate the pathway to further clinical product development, as the business moves to transform the research, diagnosis and treatment of reproductive and menstrual health conditions.

Despite affecting half the global population, menstrual and women’s reproductive health remains among the most under-served areas in healthcare. One in three women will experience severe menstrual or reproductive health symptoms in their lifetime, yet both clinicians and individuals lack reliable tools for baseline measurement and tracking.

Emm is addressing this gap with a wearable device that objectively measures menstrual flow volume and tracks key cycle metrics, such as duration, frequency and regularity, offering users accurate, personalised health insights, together with an absolute commitment to privacy.

Developed over five years with thousands of design iterations and extended user testing, the non-intrusive cup integrates medical-grade silicone with ultra-thin sensor technology. The accompanying connected app automatically collates baseline data over time, allowing users to identify and track patterns, understand their own biology, and have more effective conversations with healthcare professionals about their symptoms, in just three cycles.

Jenny Button founded Emm in 2020 to transform outcomes in women’s health.

“Menstruation is known as the fifth vital sign, but has historically been overlooked by the wearable sector, leaving millions without the data they need to understand and advocate for their own bodies,” said Button. “We envision a future where menstrual health is measured and understood as comprehensively as cardiovascular or metabolic health, giving people access to objective, actionable insights to better manage their health and wellbeing.”

The company’s board is chaired by Grace Colón, a biotech specialist with nearly 30 years’ experience across biopharma, genomics and healthcare, currently serving on multiple corporate and non-profit boards including Voyager Therapeutics, MIT and Bio.

“Emm’s technology has the potential to serve as both a biological sample and data insights platform, unlocking new knowledge and opportunities for researchers and biotech focused on women’s health and beyond,” said Colón. “I am thrilled to partner with Jenny and her team to provide tools that are desperately needed and catalyse what we anticipate will be major advances for patients.”

Emm will launch to consumers in the UK in early 2026, with other markets to follow. The waitlist for subscribers is open via the Emm web site at www.emm.co.

The funding round was led by Lunar Ventures, with additional participation from the Labcorp Venture Fund, Tiny VC, BlueLion Global, Alumni Ventures (investor in Ōura and Levels), and a network of angels, including Amar Shah (co-founder of Wayve), Vivek Garipalli (founder of Clover Health and Wormhole Capital), and Harpreet Rai (former CEO at Ōura). Emm has also received non-dilutive funding, including grants that support innovation in women’s health technology.

“We’re proud to back Jenny and the Emm team as they build the foundational technology to transform women’s health and drive measurable impact in chronic diseases,” said Mick Halsband, partner at Lunar Ventures (www.lunar.vc). “At Lunar, we invest in founders tackling complex engineering challenges across data, materials and biological systems, and Emm exemplifies this with its world-class hardware and high-fidelity data. Their world-first platform has the potential to redefine standards of care and data quality in menstrual health and beyond.”

Megann Vaughn Watters, vice president at Labcorp (www.labcorp.com/venture-fund), added: “We see tremendous value in innovations that give people more control over their own health with actionable data and insights. We are excited to support Emm as they strive to bridge the gap in access to reliable menstrual health data and change the way reproductive health conditions are researched, diagnosed and discussed by both consumers and clinicians.”