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On a warm afternoon in late August, the event center at Wente Vineyards was bustling with lively discussions between an intimate, yet diverse group of healthcare professionals, investors, innovators, elected officials and community leaders.
The central topic? Women’s health.
As a follow-up to The Unseen Opportunity in Women’s Health conference this spring, Startup Tri-Valley — in collaboration with Genevieve LeMarchal, managing partner of venture capitalist firm Suncoast Ventures — held a smaller summit that aimed to dive deeper into the investment opportunities that exist within the women’s health space and the potential for the Tri-Valley to become a hub for women’s health innovation.
Yolanda Fintschenko, executive director of the i-GATE Innovation Hub — the parent organization of Startup Tri-Valley — highlighted in her remarks that women’s health is an underserved market. “At the last event, The Unseen Opportunity in Women’s Health, Genevieve and her keynote address inspired our organization and region to capture this economic engine while meeting unmet clinical needs for women,” she said.
She continued, “Our region is uniquely positioned to lead — with four hospital systems, a growing investor base, and a science-driven startup ecosystem. Yet no region has claimed the identity as the center of mass for women’s health innovation. We believe the Tri-Valley can be that place.”
During the event, Fintschenko also announced that the momentum will continue with the launch of a women’s health series of quarterly events in 2026 that will bring together founders, clinicians, investors, and patient advocates to spotlight underrepresented topics and unseen investment opportunities in women’s health.
Innovators present at the Aug. 27 summit included Emily Sylvester, founder of Mother of Fact, a digital health platform advancing maternal nutrition. Based in New England, Sylvester was awarded a travel grant by Visit Tri-Valley to attend the summit and bring along her infant daughter.
“It sounds like a small thing but it’s actually not because a small amount of support, not even just monetarily, allows a founder to stay in the game who would otherwise, circumstantially, have to leave,” LeMarchal said, referring to Sylvester’s travel grant from Visit Tri-Valley to help illustrate the type of collaboration and support that she and Fintschenko seek to facilitate.
“I have seen far too many women, myself even included, under pressure to shelve our careers and shelve our dreams because of family and motherhood and I don’t think that has to be possible with the right creative support structures in place,” LeMarchal added.
“So if we want women’s health innovation to thrive, we have to make sure that women entrepreneurs are not forced out at the very moment when their idea is needed in the world the most,” she said.
Neil Ray, founder and CEO of San Ramon-based Raydiant Oximetry, was also in the room and participated in an informal panel discussion, sharing insights about his journey with his company which specializes in developing a safe, noninvasive fetal pulse oximeter that measures fetal oxygen levels.
Maria Molland, former CEO of Thinx which designs and develops undergarments that absorb menstrual blood, was on the panel with Ray. She offered perspective from an investment standpoint as she is currently an executive in residence at private equity firm Frazier Healthcare Partners, where she seeks to invest in scalable businesses in women’s health and wellness.
While they each had unique experiences to draw from, among the advice they both shared for entrepreneurs was an emphasis on data. Collecting as much data to bolster the value and efficacy of a product and its potential to make money are essential to pique the interest of investors.
“I think it’s about how you leverage the data that you have,” Molland said. “It doesn’t have to be a large dataset — it can be a small dataset. It can be things that are what patients say after using your product or your service, what their improved symptoms are or what the outcomes are. It even can be biometric data … if you’re kind of more in the wellness space. I think it’s just being scrappy about how you source that data,” she added.
Additionally, Ray underscored the importance of giving investors a reason to believe.
“Data’s a great reason to believe but as you tell your story or think about your story, give your people close to you, like your friends and family, a reason to believe. Because if you can’t get them to believe in your idea, it’s going to be really hard to get an investor to believe in your idea.”
