Bloom Health, a startup working to improve the future of women’s health, was recently named the winner of BIP Ventures’ Startup Showdown. The company, led by co-founder and Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management MBA candidate Julia Schuller, will receive a $120,000 investment prize and access to a wide variety of resources and opportunities as a full-fledged member of the BIP Ventures portfolio.
Schuller, a Dean’s Scholar at Owen, is a popular women’s health advocate on TikTok and has been featured on BuzzFeed. She partnered with her doctor, Dr. Danielle Miller, to launch Bloom Health as a public benefit corporation in May 2023. The startup’s mission is to improve standards for women’s health by providing women around the world with access to reproductive education. The company’s flagship product identifies a woman’s fertile window through use of a proprietary algorithm.
“I am honored to have Bloom Health selected as the winner of the Startup Showdown and join the BIP Ventures portfolio. Since I began my MBA at Vanderbilt, so many doors have opened thanks to the support of the Wond’ry, programs like Launch and the faculty at Owen Graduate School of Management,” Schuller said. “This investment continues our pre-seed round at a $10 million valuation cap, which enables my co-founder and me to begin the FDA process for our medical device. Thank you to the judges and the BIP Ventures team for believing in the next generation of women’s health.”
BIP Ventures is the North American–focused venture capital division of BIP Capital and one of the Southeast’s largest and most active VC firms. “Julia and Danielle’s story of the problem was compelling. The prevailing worldview that women that want birth control are on birth control is hard to displace. The founders’ story drove home the idea that many women wanting birth control need a different approach, and this is a large market,” said Dan Drechsel, general partner at BIP Ventures. “The approach of Bloom reaching 99 percent efficacy indicates a viable product. The clear-minded thinking on unit economics, of how to reach women, and the sequence of the product launch revealed a leader in Julia that can make the vision happen. That combination was compelling for the judges to give them the win.”
The startup is part of the Launch incubator at the Wond’ry, Vanderbilt’s Innovation Center. The incubator gives Bloom Health access to a co-working space, dedicated mentorship and resources to grow business operations. Bloom Health has participated in the Wond’ry’s Founder, Ideator and Builder programs and in the Lightning biotech accelerator program. During Bloom Health’s engagement with the Wond’ry through these programs, Schuller and Miller received support to undertake customer discovery and pitch deck preparation processes.
Bloom Health also has received a microgrant from the National Science Foundation as members of Innovation Corps and the Sohr Grant awarded by Owen. In 2023, Bloom Health won the Renaissance Women’s Summit student pitch competition, and Schuller celebrated International Women’s Day by speaking at a United Nations event for the Commission on the Status of Women.
“Bloom Health demonstrates the power of the curriculum and mentorship at the Wond’ry—and now, the Founder program and the Launch incubator—as Julia completes her Owen MBA,” said Stryker Warren, associate director of venture development at the Wond’ry. “This founder and CEO took her arduous, personal journey of 10 years and has told a story of hope that resulted in the ultimate first-person customer discovery process. Now Bloom Health has won numerous pitch contest awards and grants. When Julia presents her value proposition, I hear ‘brilliant, timely and astonishingly accurate; finally, a sensible solution!’ I expect rapid growth and adoption for this best-in-class solution.”