When lifelong worrier Louise Stevenson asked her husband whether her anxiety was damaging, his answer stopped her in her tracks. “He said it had a negative impact on absolutely everything.” It was the prompt she needed to seek help.
Diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder, she searched for tech-based tools to complement her therapy. “But I couldn’t find an app that offered what I wanted,” she says. “I was literally scribbling down my worries on backs of envelopes.” So the 41-year-old mum from Herefordshire ditched her job in financial services, created Worry Tree – one of 15 approved mental health tools in the NHS app library – and entered the flourishing femtech sector.
The app, which helps users notice and challenge their worries, is available to anyone, but 75% of her users are women. It turns out they’re twice as likely as men to experience anxiety. Stevenson has now won a place on a new dedicated accelerator, the London-based Femtech Lab, billed as the first in Europe to focus on this sector.
The term femtech, referring to products addressing health or…
