OBIO recently announced the women-led companies selected for the third cohort of its Women in Health Initiative (WiHI) Seed Program, for future female leaders in life sciences. The program began in 2023 to address the barriers that women-led companies face in accessing financing and wraparound supports.
According to Founders Forum Group, female-founded companies represented 6.4 percent of deals in 2024, but received 2.3 percent of capital. Even when women founders succeed in securing capital, they receive significantly less than their male counterparts.
About the program:
The WiHI Seed Program helps women entrepreneurs in the health science sector to overcome these challenges by offering access to advisory, expert networks, industry resources & tools, non-dilutive funding and an opportunity to pitch for equity investment. To date, 18 companies have completed this comprehensive six-month program and collectively raised over $29 million.
“OBIO is proud to support women entrepreneurs in the life sciences and health technology sectors,” said Dr. Maura Campbell, President & CEO of OBIO. “The WiHI Seed Program provides critical funding (both dilutive and non-dilutive), industry tools/resources, access to subject matter expertise and advisory supports to empower women entrepreneurs to raise capital, grow their businesses and bring new health innovations to patients.”
Selected companies:
The selected companies for the WiHI Seed Program 2025 are:
The nine companies are in the biotech, medtech and digital health sectors, all with female leaders in life sciences. They include novel therapeutic approaches to treat cancers, solutions for patient monitoring and cancer staging and digital platforms for women’s health and trauma therapy.
“It’s a sincere privilege to participate in the WiHI Seed Program,” said Mackensey Bacon, CEO & Co-Founder of NodeAI Diagnostics. “There is a crucial funding gap for women entrepreneurs, especially at early stages. The industry expertise and support from OBIO will accelerate our path towards raising capital and commercialization. It is refreshing to have programs advancing women in entrepreneurship and I am humbled to be joining this exceptional cohort of women leaders.”
To learn about another female leader in life sciences, read this Lioness feature on Dr. Candice Hughes.
About OBIO:
Founded in 2009, OBIO is a not-for-profit, membership-based organization engaged in strategy, programming, policy development and advocacy. They address the needs of the next generation of companies developing innovative human health products. OBIO supports early-stage and venture-backed life sciences and health tech companies enabling them to raise capital, hire and train industry-ready talent, facilitate the commercialization and market adoption of their technologies in health systems and access infrastructure. OBIO advances this goal through collaborative partnerships with industry, the investment community, academia, the healthcare system and government. For more information, please visit obio.ca and follow OBIO® on LinkedIn and X.
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