Inside a Femtech Venture Studio with Melissa Wallace | Blush & Bloom Podcast | Ep. 55

On this week's Blush & Bloom, Gigi Kenneth sits down with Melissa Wallace, CEO and founding partner of Fierce Foundry, a femtech venture studio that co-builds female-led health tech companies from idea to exit. Melissa is also Co-Founder and Managing Director of Fivefoottwo Marketing, and a longtime Techstars mentor. Her case is simple: women's health founders need capital and hands-on support at the same time, and a studio model can provide both.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Melissa's path from entertainment marketing at A&E to early-stage tech at Buddy Media, Salesforce and Bitly
• Why she turned a volunteer mentoring community into Fierce Foundry
• What a femtech venture studio is, and why the model matters for funding female founders
• How to approach marketing women's health startups by starting with the customer
• The biggest challenges for women's health founders: compliance, fundraising and grants
• Her advice for anyone dreaming of starting a company

From entertainment marketing to early-stage tech

Melissa spent most of her early career marketing music, TV and film, including leading digital marketing at A&E Television as social media was emerging. After a layoff, one of her own tech providers, Buddy Media, recruited her to refresh its brand and lead a major go-to-market campaign. Within a year the company was acquired by Salesforce. After stints at Salesforce and Bitly, she and a longtime colleague started Fivefoottwo Marketing to work with many early-stage startups at once.

Why she started Fierce Foundry

Through the agency, Melissa kept meeting women founders who could not raise enough money to spend on marketing. The advice they gave, focus on product and the investors will come, did not hold up. The investors were not coming. She and her partners began volunteering their time, which grew into a mentoring community and then a nonprofit, Fierce Founders. In 2023 she proposed going further and building companies alongside these women. As she puts it, "people invest in people who look like them," so more women who exit successfully means more women investing in the next generation.

What is a femtech venture studio?

A femtech venture studio co-creates women's health companies rather than only funding them. Fierce Foundry provides capital investment plus the services needed to operate the business, and stays with the founder from start to finish. Melissa describes it as the first US-based femtech venture studio she knows of, alongside peers such as Dia Ventures and Impact 51 elsewhere, and hopes to share a blueprint so others can build studios of their own.

Why is funding female founders in femtech so hard?

Melissa notes that most femtech founders are women, yet many never receive funding. Investors have shifted toward later-stage companies and want traction before writing a cheque, which makes the first seed round the hardest step. She also points out that people invest in products they understand, so male investors do not always see the path to success for products built for women. Her practical tip: build out grant applications once, then apply widely, since grants come with no investor attached.

How should you approach marketing women's health startups?

For Melissa, it is less about the industry and more about the customer. "Women" is not a target audience. A woman of 35 and a woman of 50 need different messages in different places. Some companies also have two audiences, like Aunt Flow, where the end user has a period but the buyer is the organisation stocking the product. Marketing the impact a product has, not only the product, builds the awareness women's health still needs.

Standing out, and the case for jumping

Melissa's take on a crowded market comes from a marketing rule she lives by: "you either build it better or you build it first." Know your competition, find your core differentiators and stay authentic. She credits Claire Coder, founder of Aunt Flow and someone she mentored through Techstars, as proof that founders who bring their own voice forward stand apart. Her one message for women dreaming of starting a company is to jump, and she shares the story of an idea she once let go that later became a household-name service.

Melissa also recommends The XX Brain by neuroscientist Dr. Lisa Mosconi for anyone curious about how little research has focused on the female brain.

FAQ

Who is Melissa Wallace? Melissa Wallace is the CEO and founding partner of Fierce Foundry, a femtech venture studio, and Co-Founder and Managing Director of Fivefoottwo Marketing. She previously led marketing at Buddy Media and Bitly and mentors founders through Techstars.

What does Fierce Foundry do? Fierce Foundry co-builds female-led health tech companies from idea to exit, providing capital investment along with the operating services founders need at every stage.

How is a venture studio different from a VC fund? A VC fund invests in companies that already exist. A venture studio helps create and run the company, combining money with hands-on support such as marketing, product and operations.

What is Melissa's top advice for women who want to start a company? Jump. She encourages women to believe in themselves, take calculated risks and start building rather than waiting until they feel ready.

Listen and connect

Listen to the full conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. Learn more about Melissa's work at Fierce Foundry and Fivefoottwo Marketing. Explore more conversations on the Blush and Bloom podcast hub, including Ep. 54 on psychological safety in the workplace, and at Asele.

This episode is for general informational purposes and does not constitute medical, legal, or regulatory advice.