Jenny Stojkovic: Kate Ryder Saw a Broken System and Built the Category That Fixed It…
Jenny Stojkovic, Founder of billion dollar energy and The Women Creators, shared on LinkedIn:
“She watched her friend lose her baby at seven months and had to deliver her stillborn. Then the hospital put her in the postpartum ward, surrounded by new moms and their newborns.
So she built a $1.7 billion company to fix it.
Meet Kate Ryder, Founder and CEO of Maven Clinic.
Kate grew up in Minnesota. She studied English and political science at the University of Michigan, then got a master’s in anthropology at the London School of Economics.
She became a journalist, writing for The Economist, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal. In 2009, at 25, she ghostwrote Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s memoir about the 2008 financial crisis.
In 2012, she joined Index Ventures in London as an investor.
But something kept nagging at her.
She watched friends struggle through pregnancy, postpartum, and fertility challenges with almost no support. Doctors were hard to find and appointments were impossible.
The system wasn’t built for women.
One of her earliest memories was visiting her mother undergoing breast cancer treatment. She was under five years old.
In 2014, she quit her job and founded Maven Clinic, the first virtual clinic focused entirely on women’s and family health.
She bet on herself.
In 2015, 11 weeks pregnant and new to New York, Kate started bleeding. She had no local doctor. So she opened Maven. A nurse practitioner on a video visit sent her to the ER, where she miscarried.
Her first investor gave her $50,000 on the spot at a lunch meeting.
Maven launched with a simple idea: give women access to OB-GYNs, midwives, mental health specialists, and lactation consultants through their phones. On demand.
Employers signed on. First, Amazon, then Microsoft, and AT&T. Half of the Fortune 15.
In 2021, Maven became the first U.S. unicorn focused on women’s and family health. In 2024, it raised a Series F at a $1.7 billion valuation. Annual revenue hit $268 million.
Today, Maven covers 28 million lives in 175 countries through more than 2,300 employers and health plans.
But here’s what makes Kate different in 2026:
In March, Maven opened its doors to every woman, with or without an employer plan. The new consumer platform includes virtual care plus hormone and GLP-1 programs built for women.
In April, TIME named Maven one of the 100 Most Influential Companies for the second time.
Kate has said: ‘I want to be able to show up to every person who is thinking about starting a family.’
What makes Kate remarkable is that she didn’t come from healthcare. She came from journalism and venture capital. She saw a broken system and built the category that fixed it.
Kate Ryder may be one of the most important founders in women’s health, yet this post might be the first time you’ve ever heard of her.
Share this post with someone who is changing the world.
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