And now we are going forward to another amazing speaker. Her name is Lie Lyles, marketing director at F tech focus. By 2025 the women's house market could be worth $50 billion. The industry is booming with tech part solutions and products to prove women's houses. Everyone, wellness her career.

He was from architect to fortune 500 com companies to start up companies bring lessons in smashing glass ceiling and importance of diverse inclusion and moving digital transformations, transformation mountains. How a 10 year caren digital transformation informs fan and industry result from promise powerful sexual taboos and empowerment in realizing new solutions to uh to age old women's problems. And I'm super excited to welcome on the stage, Ellie.

Thank you for having me.

Thanks for joining us. We can see and hear you well.

OK. Nice. That's always a plus. Let me go ahead and share.

Uh Yeah, just a second. Yeah, everything works very well. Amazing. Then I will leave the stage to you and we look back for some Q and A if we have some time.

OK, great. That sounds great. Well, everyone uh thank you for attending this talk. This section. I hope that you're having a great day and learning a bunch. I know I just took some notes from this session. That was right before me. Uh My name is Ali Lyles and I'm the marketing director at Thumb Focus. Uh So today we're gonna talk a little bit about my career, how I went from an architect to a marketing director. Uh But really talk about the excitement that surrounds fintech and we'll jump into some of the stats. Um And what, what that looks like right now and why it's an exciting time uh to be here in this space. So if you're tweeting right now, um my handle is actually at the bottom, right? It's Ally Lyles underscore and then I have the event. Hashtag Let's see. All right, let me go ahead and, and move ahead. All right. So a little bit about myself. Uh Like I said, I'm the marketing director of th tech focus. Um And I will get into what thumb tech focus is in just a second. Um And then I'm also marketing director of the FM Tech Focus Podcast with Britney Barretto. Um Bye Trade for the past 10 years. I've been a digital strategy consultant who specializes in human centered product design for tech brands. So I've worked for Dell, uh I've worked for General Assembly. I've worked for Direct Energy.

I've worked for the Bloomberg Administration, really anything from start up and then leap over into Fortune 50 I've, I've been involved in it. Uh So I've worn many hats over the years and we're gonna jump into why that looks actually is very beneficial in, in terms of where I am right now in Femtech. Now, Femtech focus is a nonprofit organization that provides uh support for founders through exposure, online network, uh product accelerators and capital access to money. Um And this is incredibly important uh to consider in this space. Uh The fact that film tech focus serves as a resource for film tech start ups globally. And uh we have uh a lot of pride in what we do. So a little bit about me is that basically this is what my career trajectory looks like. And and there is a um a belief, I believe the word is Kaizen, it's Japanese and it is the ability to make small incremental um decisions uh to improve a situation and these incremental decisions will lead to a quantum leap and change. So the reason why I bring that up is being a social media specialist. I started off in the former uh Mayor Bloomberg administration in New York. Then I went to marketing at Dell and act as a consultant at Dell.

Then I went to Digital Transformation where um most recently women in it, Silicon Valley named me Digital Transformation leader of the year that taught me systems thinking. Then I went into product development because I understood from a systems thinking perspective what all it takes to create a product.

You know, you need operations, you need marketing, you need sales, you need procurement. There are a lot of pieces here. And then finally, I'm in Femtech and uh Femtech is uh our technology services and products that improve women's health and wellness and women's health and wellness is everyone's health and wellness. And I'll explain to you why that is. So these are conditions that solely disproportionately or differently affect women. So let me go ahead and just sum it up in a nutshell. So let me um back up out of here and I want to show this very brief video because a lot of times folks are asking me, OK, what is Femtech focus? Like what is it that I'm supposed to be learning about this really interesting industry? Uh So I will go ahead and play the video. All right. So like I said, it's difficult to describe an entire industry in about 37 seconds. Uh But that's a little bit about what the FM tech industry is and, and, and what um fete focus does. So let's talk about business. Let's get down to the numbers. Here's the state of the Femtech industry. It sorry for the music. I guess that was on loop for the next video. Never mind. We're not gonna break stride.

All right, for the, so here's where we are with the state of Fintech. It's a crazy amount of money. That's involved in fintech and to some extent, it's the wild, wild west. It's, it's unexplored. You know, one of the things that uh I'll talk about a little bit later is the uh word fintech was coined in 2016 by Ida 10, uh who is the founder of clue. So the word femtech is brand new and it's the only word that Ida could think of where she could describe the type of product that she was making a email. Technology, Suntech. And um what we see is massive. So the market sizes are huge. So fertility is about $36 billion women's hygiene, uh $63 billion sexual wellness, $37 billion and with 37 exits, these companies went public. So if anyone ever tells you, I can't think of a film tech company that's ever gone public. That's wrong. There have been 37 exits and think about the purchasing power here. 20 trillion worldwide spending is what is in a woman's purse worldwide. Uh 85% consumer purchases, uh 80% healthcare purchases. And then a lot of these Fintech products or devices or services are being sold uh direct to consumer at 70%. And what does this profile look like? There are 85% female founders. Shout out to the 15% of men. We see you, we love you.

Uh And then companies that are owned by women. Um actually um bring in 30% more ro I than other companies. So it looks like a win all over. Um So here is where uh the need meets innovation. So this is like a, a small snippet of some of the companies out there that are in the realm of fintech. This is by no means exhaustive and these are companies that are solving for uh problems that are experienced by women. And one of the things that Britney Barretto, our executive director says is that, you know, women's needs need in uh innovation. If you were to go into a women's bathroom in the United States, you'd see like this little white machine where you get a quarter and put in a quarter to get a tampon. And that's something that's happening in 2020. Like one of the things she suggested, why can't I have a QR code that allows me to safely pay and hygienically pay for what I need for my health. That to my knowledge that does not exist. So I've made some notes on the right hand margin of where the margin is saturated. So there's a lot of fertility, a lot of menstruation, a lot of maternal health, sexual wellness, breastfeeding, and menopause because these are things that at one point in the market just didn't exist.

Um When you think about it like the way that we are right now, um We don't really think about women and technology and design in the same boat. Think about a seatbelt right in a seatbelt. Um, women have breasts and women get pregnant so when they are constantly sort of finagling like how to wear a seatbelt. Um, and that's just like a small example of something that wasn't probably thought of when, um, women were, uh, well, when the seatbelt was being made, I guess we, we adapt to it now but, you know, not all is, is, is terrific and see. Mhm. No. All right, let me see. Uh Sorry, just give me one second here. Uh Here we go, hopefully. OK, finally. OK, sorry about that. So here's fintech investment growth. I mean, this one of the things that we're talking about is like what is this profile look like? And um here's some notable moves so we're seeing VC activity here. So if you're someone that um is interested in venture capital in this specific space, this is what the activity is looking. I and this is uh from pitch book and it was actually recently released over the summer.

So you can see that not only is money being given to um you know, companies that are seeing, they're being given to uh companies that are, you know, pretty well invested in talking series BC and D. So the activity has been um uh gaining uh since uh 2018, you know, when this bar chart. So now one thing to notice is by 2020 you see that it's only part way here, this was actually pulled in September. Uh So that is why the number looks comparatively a little bit different. However, um uh we uh the recent figures show that uh 2020 is on parse uh to beat 2018, which is pretty acceptable uh given the pandemic. So here's some Fintech investment resources. I mean, there are multiple ways to source the fintech uh start up. Uh Of course, you can go the VC route. Here are um a couple of V CS that have been very uh dynamic in this space. However, you can go out for funds and, and that's the bucket, I call it the funds bucket because there are companies that are not technical V CS. Uh however, they do give money to specific installations, you know, projects that are for female founders or for therapeutics or for digital health. And then alternatively, there are always foundations, grants and pitch competitions.

Uh You can actually here in the United States at least apply for government grants uh to be able to work on fintech projects. Now, here's some barriers to fin tech. I mean, here's where you get that, that friction, you know, you know, one of the things that's interesting about Femtech is that this is the idea that that women and men entrepreneurs, these companies are founding in order to solve a problem that exists in the market. Um However, once they actually think of that product, there's still some barriers that they need to face when they go to market. So women receive less VC funding in general, especially black women entrepreneurs here in the United States. I believe that uh women entrepreneurs receive 1% of VC funding and they are unaware male uh B CS. So there's an um educational curve here for men at B CS who don't understand, you know why we need um like like breast milk to be dried and stored. So we don't have to worry about refrigeration. Like for men who don't experience that firsthand, of course, they might have partners that do. It's, it's a little bit different from them. There are untold exits and market sizes. So there's an unclear picture of the entire landscape.

I mean, thinking that, you know, Femtech was coined around 2016, this four year old market. So there are activity here that we just haven't documented because we haven't quite known how to classify it. It's difficult to quantify that uh quantify the medicines of sex tech. An example of this is that um there is uh you know, a lot of times when we think about sex stuff, we think about like uh dildos and, and things that might be considered a little bit crude. There are people who actually have like libido problems, women who have libido problems, but it's difficult to quantify that, you know. Meanwhile, uh we are able to quantify nail libido and Viagra. So it's this new territory and brings some fuzziness and there are high barriers to FDA approval.

I mean, one of the things that um is difficult is when you go through these trials with FDA and you're going through this process, you have to refer to uh you know, former research to contextualize what it is that you're taking a look at and to be quite honest, it's not here.

Um It's there, it's very, very sparse and then disqualified from con conferences and competitions. Lioness, which is a, a vibrator uh was disqualified from uh uh ce S a couple of years back because when they allowed them to enter the uh a category that was like one of the best gadgets of the year, which was on par with like the Roomba and like a bunch of awesome um smart home devices.

And they said, oh, you're a sex toy. No, you know, you can't be here. And then they eventually brought Lioness back. And then of course, the historical and systemic exclusion of women, you know, 500 billion in annual medical expenses are attributed to women. Yet only 4% of all health care research and development is targeted specifically at women's health issues. Just something that's worth noting when you think about the field that you play in. Um Also there are some um areas of innovation. So I don't want to seem like it's, it's incredibly, uh you know, uh dark out there. One of the things that uh is an advantage is pelvic floor, health, uh health care delivery, uterine health, vaginal health and then life after cancer. I mean, of course, you can say like these are things that men experience as well, but it's different for women. So women were only allowed into clinical trials um in 1994 here in the United States. So this entire time, we've been thinking that women are tiny men and it's just not the case, the bodies uh function diff uh differently. So when we're talking about like fecal and con on continents or we're talking about atrophy, we're talking about it in the realm of women, not men and life after cancer. For an example is a great one.

When a a female undergoes uh radiation, it's very typical for two things to happen, one for her to have low libido and for two for her vag uh for vaginal cavity to be shut. Um and that those are things that need to um be fixed in order for there to be a a terrific quality of life. So what is the future of Femtech? Uh you know, this is a huge number. It's 3.04 billion projected revenue by 2030 compared to the 820 million that we've seen here in last year's 2019. So like one thing to be mindful for is like sometimes when I meet folks who are unaware of them, they're like, oh, well, like you know that that's I'm a man that doesn't have to do with me. You know, it really does have to do with you. This is your mother, this is your sister, this is your aunt. And we want women to be strong and go out there and uh be able to support us, support themselves because a strong woman who doesn't have um migraine problems or uh problems due to a lack of energy or these sort of uh problems that are really unique.

This enables her to be a better mother. This enables her to be a better worker. This enables her to contribute to the economy, which helps everyone. Uh So that's what I wanted to say today. Uh Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate it and I'll take your questions.

Thank you very much. And it's such a powerful talk and I really love what you said that it's not just, you know, women's uh women's um issue, problem, challenge, whatever. It's everyone's because we want to make women be better, mothers, better employees and uh that humans in the end. So that's definitely you got a point. People really love your talk and we'll take one question from the audience. We've got a couple of minutes. Let's take one question and credible. Thanks for sharing information. Uh And your talk definitely brings diversity to our content because you're the only speaker to talk about Fante. And I think that um should be more awareness raised about the topic. Women's health is everyone's house. So true.

So true. We've got one minute. Very informative. Very interesting. Thanks. Thanks Ellie. I find the F tech. Very interesting. You are promoting F tech here as, as a, you know, as a field of tech.

Yes, for sure, for sure. Um Yeah. Did you watch,

what should be the top priority, the top priority for who? Minority women, of whom? I know

minority women for the BC funding?

Yeah, probably let's take this aspect because I think that this is a really, really important one. I think Fante really doesn't get enough fund in general, women, female led founders don't get enough funding and then like Fante as a subject doesn't get enough recognition.

Yeah. Um I would, I, I mean, I know we're gonna wrap up soon and I, this is not a plug but I, I encourage folks to reach out to either me or Femtech focus because we have like resources on this stuff. We have a database of about 400 companies and in Femtech. And so you can know who looks like you who's doing what I think in terms of minority and DC funding. You know, this is something that I'm not gonna lie difficult and the reason being is that it's new territory, you know, there are VC firms who are just looking into investing into some tech companies. And so this is something that, you know, hadn't been con con uh considered before. So I would look at the buckets, I would look at VC si would look at nontraditional funding like for example, people who fund just black women entrepreneurs or black men entrepreneurs or international folk entrepreneurs, like whatever it is and then look at governmental grants as well.

Um And, and that would be a good place to start and eventually you'll kind of do this duck duck use where you'll be able to like spy web and find other opportunities. And this

is really a good tip and check out fintech focus for more resources. Thank you very much lie and keep up your fantastic work. It was great to have you with us. Really love your presentation, stay with us for the network and the rest of the event. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Bye

bye.