WoW Woman in FemTech I Karolina Löfqvist, founder and CEO of Hormona

Karolina Löfqvist is the founder and CEO of Hormona, a data-driven women health company helping women take control of their hormones. It was created to empower women to live healthier and happier lives in harmony with their hormones through the worlds first end-to-end solution for women’s hormonal journey.

Karolina is a former Management Consultant, who became a health tech entrepreneur after suffering from her own health issues. She grew up in an entrepreneurial family and has always been very interested in technology’s which lead her to start her first company aged 18 and since then entrepreneurship and running businesses have always been part of her life. Karolina is passionate about women’s health and making a real difference using data and innovative solutions. 

Her goal is to reshape the landscape for women’s health and contribute to advances that means better health for all women. 

Karolina, tell us a bit about your background and your projects so far.

I am originally from Sweden but have been based in London, UK, for the last 10 years. I have always been motivated by solving big problems and making a change. As I grew up in an entrepreneurial family they have always been very supportive of my various projects and businesses that I ran side by side with school and work, and now finally on a full-time basis. They have always encouraged me to keep going and have been a great sounding board when things have been tough. I have a business and finance degree and spent the majority of my twenties working as an investment manager and management consultant alongside my first startup before eventually embarking on Hormona.

How did you get into this industry? Has it been an easy industry to get into or have you had many challenges? What was the biggest obstacle?

I started Hormona due to my own health challenges and lack of existing solutions. A few years back I used to work for an investment fund and suddenly started to gain weight, getting brain fog alongside other various symptoms. When looking for answers to my health issues and symptoms I kept being bounced between doctors for almost 5 years before I was eventually diagnosed with a Thyroid disorder and hormonal imbalances.

This experience made me really notice the lack of information and education around hormonal imbalances but also the difficulty in getting an accurate picture of what was going on with my hormones. A one-off blood test is simply not enough to give a true picture of your individual hormone situation since your hormones fluctuate so frequently. Because of these fluctuations, you need to test your hormones regularly and on specific days in your cycle to really get a complete picture of what is going on. But no such tests seemed to exist and with that realisation, my entrepreneurial side kicked in and I decided to create a better solution for all women out there suffering from anything related to hormones. I partnered up with some great endocrinologists, bioengineers, nutritionists, and women’s health experts, and Hormona was born. A year on our at-home hormone test has now been prototyped and is set for a release later this year with the app in closed beta for early adopters. 

Not being a doctor or bioengineer myself but a management consultant and business-focused professional has obviously meant that I’ve had to recruit and surround myself with professionals from the industry which in turn has made it work. Breaking into a new industry is never easy but at the end of the day if you have the willpower to keep pushing through and the ability to attract the right people then anything is possible. 

What are the challenges of being in the industry you are in? 

There are many challenges associated with trying to carve out a completely new space that people may or may not know very much about in addition to working on a completely new invention, so getting to this stage has definitely not been an easy journey. Since the tech industry is still very male-oriented raising capital has turned out to be a massive challenge since you almost exclusively deal with men. Convincing them that women actually deserve and need a solution that’s beyond period tracking or fertility has been onerous and the lack of general knowledge can be really frustrating when you are trying to solve a problem that affects 80% of women! We eventually got there in the end and I’m incredibly proud of our fully female lead team that managed to get investors on board so we can create the best possible solution for women. 

What are the projects you are currently working on? What are your biggest achievements to date?

We are currently doing closed beta-testing of the MVP of our app with additional test users from our waiting list being added regularly while simultaneously collecting feedback and data that helps us improve the user experience ahead of our official launch. The initial user feedback has been very positive, and we are listening closely to our early adopters in order to tweak and improve our app as much as we can before the launch. 

We are also in the process of developing new features for the app including our action plans which are aimed at helping women balance their hormones and improve on hormone-related symptoms over 12 weeks prior to the test being ready.

Simultaneously we have completed the prototype for our quantitative home tests which hasn’t been an easy journey since these are being developed from scratch by Hormona and it is very important to us that they are of the best quality possible to give accurate results but finally we are there! This has been an incredible achievement since developing a medical device is not a smooth journey. 

Finally, we’re also in the process of closing our seed round which has been a big focus over the last few months to ensure we can keep growing the business and continue to develop better ways to help women balance their hormones. 

In terms of the biggest achievements, that must be our team. I’m incredibly proud of the talent that we have managed to attract and expand our team with. Everyone is so passionate about what we are doing and it’s a pleasure to go to work every day. 

Is the #WomenInTech movement important to you and if yes, why? 

Definitely, it’s very important! I wished that I had more role models and a community to learn from when I was growing up since I was very interested in tech from a young age. Instead, I had to ask my dad to join him at work the days his IT consultants were around so I could learn from them. I’m somehow surprised that it has taken such a long time for this movement to happen, but I do think that there has never been a better time for women to work in tech and hopefully, generations to come will have a whole host of amazing female role models in this space.

What will be the key trends in your industry in the next five years and where do you see them heading?

I believe the two big trends are preventative care and point of care. In addition, I think solutions targeting women’s health will continue to grow at a steady phase. I don’t think women will continue to accept that their health isn’t prioritized and that we are just supposed to figure it out when it comes to issues that are exclusive to women. We can already see that shift happening and I just think that’s going to get more and more enforced. 

I also think education and knowledge will play a huge part in women’s health going forward. There are so many things we all wished we knew, like why doesn’t anyone teach us what it’s like to go into menopause? Or that there are only a very few specific days in your cycle when you can get pregnant? How birth control affects your hormones? And that your period on birth control isn’t actually your period? All these questions should be answered and not something we should have to worry about. It shouldn’t be acceptable that we have so little knowledge about our own bodies and what’s going on in them on a daily basis and I’m hoping with solutions like Hormona we can bring more data and knowledge to women so they can actively make better decisions around their health. 

What is the most important piece of advice you could give to anyone who wants to start a career in this industry?

It may sound cheesy but never give up. I’m not sure how many times I’ve just wanted to drop everything and go for a more “secure” job but at the end of the day, I’ve always come to the conclusion that there is no reward that can be as great as the reward of having my own company, doing something I love and believe in and changing a whole industry with that. It’s still much harder for women working in this field but with hard work, belief in yourself, and your mission, any woman can get there. 

Who are three inspirational women in your respective industry you admire?

1. Carolyn Witte – I love her mission of a one-stop shop for women’s health and am very impressed with the amount of funding she has managed to achieve. 

2. Sheryl Sandberg, her work with Facebook has been incredible and I believe she’s a great role model – her book is a must-read!

3. Whitney Wolfe – what a comeback after Tinder! She’s inspiring me to work towards becoming part of the small group female founder in the UK that manages to do an IPO.

Find out more about Hormona on their website.

Follow Hormona on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. 

This interview was conducted by Marija Butkovic, Digital Marketing and PR strategist, founder, and CEO of Women of Wearables. She regularly writes and speaks on topics of wearable tech, fashion tech, IoT, entrepreneurship, and diversity. Follow Marija on Twitter @MarijaButkovic and read her stories for Forbes here.