Claire Tomkins was working in clean energy at SolarCity when she started in vitro fertilization (IVF).
After multiple rounds of IVF, several miscarriages—and eventually, three children—she had a new career.
“That personal experience catapulted me out of what I had been working into this idea of how do we leverage technology to solve really important women’s health issues?” Tomkins says.
Tomkins, the founder and CEO of the fertility startup Future Family, appeared on a panel at Fortune‘s Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit in Laguna Niguel, Calif., on Tuesday alongside Lauren Berson, vice president and head of strategic growth at WW International (the former Weight Watchers); Alejandra Campoverdi, founder of the Well Woman Coalition; and moderator Erika Fry of Fortune.
“I always knew I would start a company, but I didn’t know it would be in women’s health,” Tomkins says.
Future Family offers fertility services as a subscription; egg-freezing costs $150 a month and IVF costs between $250 and $300 a month. When Tomkins was seeking financial backing, she says, investors asked how big the market size would be for fertility services. It’s a question she doesn’t get anymore.
Campoverdi and Berson, too, are part of a shift in women’s health: Berson by shaping WW’s shift from weight loss to wellness and health, and Campoverdi—who ran for Congress in a California special election in 2017—by empowering women of color to care for their health through the Well Woman Coalition.
“This is a golden moment for women who have ideas and want to run with them,” Tomkins says.
