When Joanna Strober was about 47 years old, she stopped sleeping. Her sleep deprivation is a common symptom of perimenopause, but to get her diagnosed and properly treated, she first traveled to multiple medical institutions, including a 45-minute drive from San Francisco and a $750 fee. I had to go to
“I've had this feeling that I've suffered so much unnecessarily over the past year,” Strober said on a recent episode of TechCrunch's Found podcast. “I started talking to all my friends and trying to understand what was going on with them, and what became clear is that menopause and menopause are a huge problem. In some ways, it hits women like a ton of bricks. There are so many different symptoms and there are so few health care providers trained to care for this population.”
This realization is what inspired Strober to start Midi Health. Midi Health is a telehealth platform designed to serve midlife women by connecting them with health care providers trained in the symptoms and treatment of menopause and menopause.
Despite that “aha” moment, Strober explained why he wasn't able to launch the startup right away. She said Midi wouldn't exist if the U.S. government hadn't changed the rules around telemedicine and where people can access health care during the pandemic. Strober said the changes surrounding digital health have allowed her to launch a platform that provides care to women, rather than having to find in-person care.
“It was a very exciting discovery that this long-standing problem could finally be addressed using telemedicine,” Strober said. “That's why I wanted to start this company.”
Midi operates a little differently than many other digital health companies that started in the post-pandemic wave, Strober said. She said that Midi was not set up as a digital means for users to receive her one-off care or treatment as quickly as possible, like many other companies of its contemporaries, but rather for women to pursue long-term relationships. He said that it is being set up as a platform for building. A provider that makes you feel seen.
This approach is also why Strober believes Midi has been able to continue to grow and raise VC funding, even as VCs have waned interest in the category. The company recently raised $60 million in a Series B round led by Emerson Collective with participation from Google Ventures, SteelSky Ventures, Muse Capital and others. This round brings the company's total funding to $99 million.
Digital health startups raised $13.2 billion globally in 2023, according to CB Insights data. This is a 48% drop from $25.5 billion in 2022 and a 75% drop from 2021, when a record $52.7 billion was invested.
“I think too few telemedicine companies are thinking about long-term customer relationships,” Strober said. “We believe we are building a trusted brand in health care. That means our brand is expert care for women. We want you to come back to us again and again. So, we need to provide you with great care. That's what women do.”
Midi is not Strober's first digital health startup. How did her past experience building her Kurbo Health, a startup focused on childhood obesity before digital health was yet ubiquitous, influence her choices in building Midi? We talked about how we gave. She also talked about how her past life as a venture capitalist played a role in how she approaches business.
With this latest round of funding, Midi looks forward to expanding its care in areas that fall under perimenopause and menopause, including sexual health, hair and skin care, access to testosterone, and more.
“People keep asking when they're going to go through perimenopause or menopause,” Strober said. “But perimenopause and menopause are big markets. So we need to understand what women's health needs are during this period of life and how we can appropriately address those concerns. I am working hard on this.”