African and Asian frontier tech founders supported by Sweden and UNICEF to close women’s health gaps

PRETORIA, 30 APRIL 2026 – Founders of frontier tech startups closing women's health and safety gaps across Africa and Asia convene in Pretoria this week marking the activation of the first cohort of UNICEF Femtech Ventures – a five-year (2025-2030) catalytic investment platform backed by founding partners the Government of Sweden and Temasek Foundation. The cohort gathers to engage South Africa's tech and business ecosystem – one of Africa's most developed, and a mature market for addressing sexual and reproductive health and rights.

For millions of girls and women, access to quality care, trusted health information, safe mobility and digital economic opportunity remains uneven or out of reach. The inaugural UNICEF Femtech Ventures cohort marks a deliberate shift from documenting equity gaps to backing the entrepreneurs closing them.

This first cohort activates a global network of frontier tech startups in emerging economies, applying artificial intelligence (AI), data science and blockchain to address maternal and reproductive care, safe mobility, gender-based violence response and financial inclusion. Each one was selected from over 1,100 applications from 85 countries, more than half from Africa. The shortlist of 151 startups across 53 countries were 89 per cent woman led. 

“The most important innovation for women and girls is already being built – by the entrepreneurs closest to the challenge. UNICEF Femtech Ventures backs them with the capital, technical support and partnerships to turn what works locally into access at scale,” said Thomas Davin, Global Director, UNICEF Office of Innovation.

As well as business mentorship, the startups will receive up to US$100,000 in equity-free capital alongside a year of tailored technical assistance to test, strengthen and scale their solutions. 

A model of catalytic partnership

UNICEF Femtech Ventures pairs equity-free capital with hands-on technical assistance, a model designed to de-risk future investment and direct catalytic capital toward locally built innovation. Solutions are built by founders with deep market knowledge, tested in conditions that expose false assumptions, and designed to scale where systems are weakest – built there, proven everywhere.

“Investing in local founders solving local problems is an effective use of public funding. It is how African- and Asian-built innovations thrive, scale and solve some of the world’s most intractable sexual and reproductive health challenges. Improving outcomes for girls and women is proven to have a catalytic social economic effect,” said Anna-Karin Eneström, Ambassador, Embassy of Sweden in Pretoria, South Africa. 

A cross-regional portfolio

The cohort is deliberately cross-regional, connecting founders solving parallel challenges across different market conditions, policy environments and technologies – strengthening peer infrastructure across geographies where frontier tech for women and girls is being built with urgency. 

This week in Pretoria, the cohort gathers to meet investors, regulators, researchers and peer founders, and to work alongside UNICEF technical leads on safety-by-design product shaping, responsible AI and pathways to scale. 

The first UNICEF Femtech Ventures cohort 

• Dotoh (Benin) uses low-bandwidth voice and video teleconsultations, asynchronous audio chat, geolocation-based referrals, encrypted digital health records and AI-enabled messaging to address gaps in access for women, adolescents and youth in underserved areas.
• FemHealth Data Collaborative, by Civic Data Lab (India) uses data analytics, AI and machine learning to build an evidence base for women’s health decision-making.
• Nurtura, by Doto (India) is designed for low- and middle-income countries. It continuously monitors maternal vitals and fetal parameters, automates partograph plotting and cardiotocography interpretation, and uses risk-stratification algorithms to trigger real-time alerts and differentiated care pathways.
• Uli, by Tattle (India) monitors users’ social media feeds. By combining a recognized digital public good (DPG), a large crowdsourced multilingual abuse dataset and AI-based detection systems, it offers a technically grounded and socially relevant approach to identifying abuse and connecting users to support networks.
• VivaMama (India) provides structured, evidence-based AI-powered support during the critical months after childbirth, delivering accessible, culturally contextual care, helping women manage lactation, recovery and general wellbeing.
• Bahasa Ibu, by Ibu Punya Mimpi (Indonesia) engages mothers to record, annotate and validate everyday local language, building culturally grounded data while creating dignified digital work, making AI more inclusive and expanding women’s participation in the digital economy.
• SafeRide, by Esheria (Kenya) addresses safety gaps for women in public transport through an offline-first, privacy-preserving assistant that enables structured reporting and safer referrals.
• HLlama, by Umbaji (Togo) is an open-source multilingual WhatsApp chatbot, using speech recognition, translation and AI-generated content in local languages to deliver antenatal and maternal health guidance, financial tools and help with civil registration processes.
• Feel by Luna (Tunisia) allows users to privately record symptoms in French, Arabic or Tunisian, which are transcribed and structured into a clear clinical timeline that healthcare providers can act on.
• DawaMom, by Dawa Health (Zambia) is an AI-enabled solution designed to reach women in underserved African communities by combining a multilingual chatbot with community health worker outreach, last-mile logistics and secure digital records to support antenatal, postnatal and cervical cancer prevention services.
• YouthShield, by Kairos (Burkina Faso) is a social media monitoring tool that detects and flags harmful misinformation on reproductive health and rights, helping women and girls make informed decisions. 

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Notes to editors

Photos available here.