Clue

Last Wednesday, the Clue team stepped away from our screens and onto a boat on the lakes outside Berlin. A lot of us were connecting properly for the first time since joining this year. The team’s grown fast and we’re spread across more places than ever, so we make the most of the time we do get together. Our offsites aren’t just about catching up – they’re about stepping back to sharpen our focus and strengthen how we build together. So day 2 was more hands-on: an AI workshop and hackathon ending in prizes and ideas that solve real problems, some of which we’re already planning to ship. Congrats to the 3 winning teams 🥇🥈🥉 and a huge thanks to Lyna Ouzzani at Verdane for hosting the workshop.

“The femtech space is full of misinformation, sensationalism, and fear-based claims. Just because a post on social media is shiny and goes viral, it doesn’t mean it’s true. In a world of noise, people care whether their period tracking app is science-based. And Clue is a source of science-backed explanations of what’s happening in their own body, helping users make informed health decisions. Accessible, trustworthy education is the best fix for misinformation. Being ‘science-based’ shapes everything we do. You see it also in the close collaboration between our science team and product developers, and in our partnerships with leading academic institutions to advance reproductive health research. Seeing that 91% of our members feel positively about Clue doing scientific research is another fantastic insight, and genuinely motivating. It tells us our members are aligned with our mission to advance women's health research.” – Dr. Cornelia Hainer, Director of Science. Thank you to the 10,000+ members who shared what science means to them.

Clue is now the most multilingual cycle tracker in the world 🌍 We’ve just added 4 new languages – Swahili, Ukrainian, Greek, and Hungarian – bringing us to 27 in total, more than any other product in this category. 98% of our members can now use Clue in a language that’s truly theirs. Rhiannon White, our CEO: "Health knowledge shouldn’t depend on which language you happened to be born into. People with cycles everywhere deserve high-quality, science-backed health tools, and content in the language they understand most. Language is so much more than a product feature – it’s who gets to understand their own body.” It also makes our dataset richer. A woman tracking her cycle in Swahili or Hungarian, in her own words, gets captured more accurately than she would in a second language. With consent, that record feeds research that’s long been built mostly on Western data. And as we roll out more natural-language features across the app, we’re hearing more members’ real questions, in their own voice, across 27 languages and over 190 countries. This makes Clue smarter for everyone who uses it – and slowly reshapes women’s health data into something that represents the world.

Someone brought a disco to a femtech office and nobody questioned it 🏳️🌈 That’s just what happens when everyone gets to show up as themselves. Take a look behind the scenes of yesterday’s Pride celebration ✨ A big thank you to Jessica H. and Derek Phillips for the food, prizes and playlist.

The average PMDD diagnosis takes 12 to 20 years. Faye got there faster. She'd spent years creating coping mechanisms to manage her ADHD. That worked, until she came off the pill, and every month in the days before her cycle, her mood and energy would crash. So she started tracking and built a record of her experiences: the same symptoms, same phase of her cycle, every cycle. There's no blood test or scan for PMDD – diagnosis relies on tracking symptoms over time. "There's often been times that I've gone to the doctor, and the first thing they've asked me to do is go away and track for three months and then come back. But instead, I could open the Clue app, show them I’d been tracking, and already had the information they needed." The diagnosis explained more than Faye expected. It wasn't just the mood and energy crashes, it was why her ADHD had felt unmanageable at exactly the same points every cycle. ADHD diagnostic criteria were built largely around how symptoms show up in boys and men – one reason a connection like this can take years to notice. "This is what women with ADHD often do – they mask for their entire lives. I had my coping mechanisms in place to handle my ADHD, but something like PMDD completely knocks you off." "So you can live with your head in the clouds and ignore these symptoms, or you can actually understand how your body is working, be prepared for them, and be softer on yourself in those times as well." Read Faye’s story: https://lnkd.in/eQfqNsWR 

Understanding your body should lead somewhere. So we've partnered with Twentyeight Health so members in the US can get birth control prescribed, covered, and delivered, right from the app. Because in the US, the right birth control is still harder to get than it should be. And it's about far more than preventing pregnancy – it’s how many people manage painful periods, irregular cycles, acne, and symptoms of conditions like PCOS, endometriosis, and PMDD. Twentyeight Health’s data shows more than 1 in 3 women use it to manage cramps. US-based Clue members can now access: ✔️ Personalized birth control counseling from licensed providers ✔️ Online prescriptions (when clinically appropriate) ✔️ Insurance coverage for contraception ✔️ Medication delivered to home or a local pharmacy ✔️ 50% off Twentyeight Health’s Complete Care membership Rhiannon White, our CEO, says: “Clue was built on a simple but powerful idea: that understanding your body is the first step to taking control of your health. Millions of people come to us every day to do exactly that. This partnership is the next step on that journey, giving women and people with cycles a clear path from tracking their cycle to accessing the prescription care that's right for them.”

The best advocates for women’s health are often women themselves. For most, the years-long gap between a symptom and an answer has been filled with dismissed concerns, unanswered questions, and the creeping doubt that maybe it's all in their head. But women who track have something powerful: evidence they gathered themselves that no one can dismiss. Meet seven incredible Clue members. Seven moments of clarity built on the symptoms they tracked – and in many cases, took to the people who needed to hear it. A PMDD diagnosis that finally explained everything. Years of pain that turned out to have a name. Anxiety that wasn't random after all. Louise Troen, Chief Marketing Officer: "We encourage people to become cycle aware, understand what's happening with their body and then take that information to a healthcare professional if they need to." A huge thanks to our community for sharing their stories. Read or watch them here: https://lnkd.in/ekhRF9RA ❤️

When the missing piece finally falls into place. When something you’ve felt for years suddenly has a name, a reason, an answer. Most women have been there – carrying something they couldn't quite explain, waiting for someone to take it seriously. We built this campaign for those people. Meet Eva, Calypso, Faye, Giulia, Brianna, Paula, and Deidre. Incredible members of our community who trusted us with their stories of finding clarity and confidence after years of symptoms, questions and hormonal uncertainty. When we asked our members to share their experiences, hundreds wrote back. These are seven of them. Louise Troen, our Chief Marketing Officer, told Marketing Week: "The hope is that people feel less alone. Regardless of whose story you listen to, you understand there are multiple other people going through similar experiences, and that whatever you're experiencing is normal." Read our members’ stories: https://lnkd.in/ekhRF9RA

We still don't fully understand what happens to the brain during perimenopause. A new study aims to find out. Sleep becomes disrupted. Concentrating feels harder. Mood and stress tolerance shift. Many women notice these changes years before anyone mentions perimenopause, and there’s been little research to explain why. Perimenopause is also notoriously hard to study. Hormones fluctuate, symptoms evolve, and cycles grow more irregular. A single clinic visit only catches a moment, not the pattern. But daily tracking helps reveal the bigger picture. Claudia Barth, PhD and her team at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin have launched MappingPerimenopause, a study following 300 women over 3 years. Using Clue, participants will track their sleep, mood, and energy, giving researchers continuous, real-world data alongside clinical assessments. Amanda Shea, PhD our Chief Science Officer: “Perimenopause is a critical window for brain health, yet it remains one of the biggest blind spots in women’s health research. Given the disproportionate burden of depression and dementia in women, we urgently need to better understand this transition. MappingPerimenopause brings together an unprecedented combination of brain imaging, biological measurements, cognitive testing, and real-world symptom tracking to help fill this gap." A clearer understanding of what's happening in the brain could mean more personalized perimenopause care – helping women spot changes earlier and get the right support. If you’re near Berlin and notice changes in your cycle, sleep, mood, or memory, you may be eligible to join the study. See details and sign up at the link in comments.

What if your cycle was one of the most useful health signals you have? Amanda Shea, PhD, our Chief Science Officer, is building the case that it is – and that's why Red Magazine UK just named her one of three scientists transforming women's health. The menstrual cycle isn't just about fertility or reproductive health, but a vital sign connected to the rest of the body, from the immune system and metabolism to sleep, and mood. That's the thinking behind Clue's research collaborations, turning de-identified data from more than 10 million users into meaningful scientific discovery. Right now, that includes work on: 🔴 How mental health symptoms shift across the cycle in conditions like ADHD and PMDD  🔴 How undiagnosed STIs may influence premenstrual symptoms 🔴 What factors might contribute to women’s higher risk of developing PTSD 🔴 Identifying changes in mood and brain function during perimenopause 🔴 How insulin sensitivity changes across the cycle for people with type 1 diabetes Amanda says: "What we’ve discovered is that cycles don’t affect everyone’s health in the same way. You have a unique pattern, and you need to know what's normal for you.” We’re proud to see Amanda featured alongside Dr Helen O'Neill at Hertility and Professor Sarah Berry at ZOE. Three companies, one shared goal: moving women's health research forward. Thank you to Brigid Moss for spotlighting the women helping drive it.