Prickly Pear Health, a Phoenix, Arizona–based digital health company focused on women’s brain health, has expanded its pre-seed funding round to over $600K led by Emmeline Ventures.
The partnership shows increasing investor support for solutions addressing gaps in women’s healthcare. This new funding builds on earlier investments from Bayless Ventures and AZ Venture Capital Inc., helping the startup move into its next stage of growth.
The company plans to use the funds to grow its user base and expand its platform to mental health practices, starting in Arizona.
The platform uses AI, voice analysis, and behavioural data to help women understand how hormonal changes affect their mental and emotional health, including issues like brain fog, stress and memory changes. It combines voice patterns with lifestyle and wearable data to provide personalized insights that support emotional well-being and brain performance. The platform is designed to help women through different stages, such as pregnancy, postpartum, irregular cycles, perimenopause, and menopause.
The digital brain health market is expected to grow beyond $412 billion by 2032, while the global women’s health market could exceed $1 trillion, with hormonal health alone estimated at $600 billion. Even though hormonal care impacts over 2 billion women worldwide, it is still often overlooked, underfunded, and under-researched.
By focusing on women’s brain health, Prickly Pear Health aims to create a new category in digital health that combines hormonal science, behavioural data, and personalized technology across all stages of hormonal health.
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Since launching in 2024, the platform has reached over 2,000 active users and is continuing to develop ahead of a wider public release.
Despite more companies being started by women, female founders still face major funding challenges. In 2024, women-only founding teams received just 2.3% of global venture capital, while 83.6% went to all-male teams. Although women-led companies made up 6.4% of deals, they received only a small share of total funding, showing a clear gap in the startup ecosystem.
Emmeline Ventures’ investment highlights its focus on supporting companies that improve women’s health. This is its first investment in an Arizona-based company, showing the region’s growing role in health innovation and a shift toward supporting an industry that has long been underfunded despite impacting billions of people worldwide.
“I started Prickly Pear Health to address a key gap in women’s healthcare—understanding how hormonal changes affect brain health,” said Imen Maaroufi Clark, founder and CEO. “This funding shows strong support from partners who believe women need better tools to understand what’s happening in their brains during life changes.”
“We invest in founders who are building meaningful solutions that advance women’s health while creating strong businesses,” said Azin Radsan van Alebeek, Co-founder and General Partner at Emmeline Ventures. “Prickly Pear Health represents a compelling intersection of technology, data and an underserved market opportunity.”
About Prickly Pear Health
Founded in 2024, by Imen Maaroufi Clark, Prickly Pear is a next generation digital health platform focused on supporting brain health during and beyond reproductive years. It uses voice AI, behavioural data, and wearable technology to provide personalized insights that improve emotional well-being, mental clarity, and cognitive strength, especially for women experiencing hormonal changes. By encouraging healthy lifestyle habits, the platform helps users boost brain performance, and overall well-being.
About Emmeline Ventures
Founded in 2022, by Azin Radsan van Alebeek, Emmeline Ventures invests in companies that help women improve their health, grow their wealth, and live in a cleaner, safer world. The firm focuses on overlooked markets with strong growth potential, supporting businesses that combine innovation with great demand. With strong operational experience, the team works closely with founders to reduce early risks and speed up growth. Emmeline follows a focused strategy, investing in high potential companies that aim to deliver both strong returns and real-world impact.
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