10.09.24: HeyFlow, the female reproductive health inclusion business, which aims to end disadvantage for women in the workplace, has become the founding investment client for Aer Venture Studios, the new SaaS impact-driven venture arm from Aer Studios. The £235,000 investment will support the build and architecture of HeyFlow’s tech platform and employee insight product, enabling it to reach even more enterprise clients.
A majority-female start-up, HeyFlow aims to create meaningful change for women at work globally, at a time when 31% of women experience severe reproductive health symptoms every year: 85% of women face at least four reproductive health conditions and mothers see a 60% drop in earnings following their first child, compared to fathers. HeyFlow transforms organisations through employee experience insight that reshapes workplace behaviour and fuels meaningful change for women’s inclusion, resulting in organisations retaining talent, promoting talent, boosting profitability, and creating an equitable future.
Aer Venture Studios has been launched by creative technology firm, Aer Studios, to help early-stage SaaS tech businesses with funding and creative tech expertise to accelerate their time to market. It aims to create meaningful digital experiences that have an impact on people and planet. It’s set up to deliver the financial backing that early stage ventures need, tech expertise required to develop products to a launch-ready stage and partnerships required for future investment rounds. HeyFlow marks its first investment client.
Following its launch in 2023, HeyFlow has worked with progressive companies including Hitachi Vantara, BIMA and Digitas UK, providing insight into their female employee experiences, management’s ability to support at all levels, informing leadership gender inclusion strategies and empowering them to create change. The funding will enable the development of its technology platform to deliver on a national and global basis, as well as providing progress measurement and on-demand industry benchmarking.
HeyFlow is now actively seeking an additional pre-seed investment of £250,000, to allow the firm to take the employee experience and diagnostics platform to market. A future roadmap introduces Artificial Intelligence (AI) to provide on-demand learning solutions and delivering against mandated gender pay and ESG reporting, globally.
“We’re honoured to secure Aer Venture Studios’ investment and trust in HeyFlow’s vision. Its backing is a testament to our early success and powerful validation of our mission to champion reproductive health inclusion and close workplace gender gaps. At a time where only a small percentage of investment goes to female-founded companies, Aer Venture Studios’ belief in HeyFlow sends a clear message that innovative, women-led start-ups are worthy of investment. Their support strengthens our ability to scale globally, and together, we’re set to shake up the future of work,” comments Sophie Creese, Co-Founder, HeyFlow.
Geoff Wells, director, Aer Venture Studios; “Our mission is to help organisations realise their vision for digital experiences that have a positive impact on people and planet. Our ambition and values are perfectly aligned with HeyFlow’s, making it the ideal collaboration and partnership. We are excited at the opportunity to bring the full force of our creative and technical talent in Aer Studios to realise HeyFlow’s vision and accelerate its impact.”
HeyFlow is a majority female-founded and owned business, launched by Sophie Creese, Nick Dean and Sabrina Walls, with Kate Thompson, an applied behavioural scientist and co-founder of businessfourzero, recently joining as NED. With financial backing by ADLIB Recruitment, the team brings together many years of expertise in gender equality work and talent solutions. Aer Venture Studios’ Directors Geoff Wells and Tom Harber will play active roles in the future of HeyFlow, with Wells taking a seat on the board. Wells and Harber bring extensive expertise in delivering award winning creative technology solutions for organisations including BBC, Breast Cancer Now, Diabetes UK and Women’s Aid.
For media enquiries, please contact Sabrina Walls on sabrina@heyflow.co.uk / contact Jess Morgan on jess@carnsight.com or on 07947 008 071.
Ending disadvantage for women in the workplace. 31% of women experience severe reproductive health symptoms every year. If not supported properly they can have a massive impact in the workplace and become a hidden burden leading to a lack of inclusion, increased absenteeism, and reduced retention.
Through insight, learning and action for female* reproductive health inclusion in the workplace, HeyFlow empowers businesses to create change and build a truly inclusive companies.
*We actually mean people with internal reproductive health organs, it’s just not as catchy.
You can read our full inclusion statement here: https://heyflow.co.uk/inclusion-statement
Aer Venture Studios works with impact driven founders and their teams, bringing creative technology expertise and financial backing to progress their concept to MVP and launch. Aer Venture Studios’ mission is to create meaningful digital experiences that have an impact on people and planet. Launched by creative tech firm Aer Studios, Aer Venture Studios bring financial backing that early stage ventures vitally need and combine this with the expertise required to develop the product to a launch ready stage, as well as partnerships required for future investment rounds to scale fast.
To address this issue, HeyFlow has launched a groundbreaking open-source suite of Reproductive Health Policy Guides to access information and best practices around reproductive health inclusion in the workplace.
Sophie Creese, Co-Founder and CEO discusses why this is an important initiative:
“Guidance on how to properly address reproductive health at work is often scattered across various sources or specific to a certain business, making it challenging for organisations to implement cohesive and inclusive practices and not knowing where to start. We wanted to create a source of information that is accessible so that businesses can develop informed and effective reproductive health policies.”
To mark the launch of the series of policy guides, HeyFlow has released two guides on Menstruation & Menopause. The suite will be expanded to cover other reproductive health topics, but these were selected as the two key considerations for employers as they directly impact most women’s experience within the workplace.
By 2030, 47% of all 50s are forecasted to be part of the UK labour workforce4, meaning that most employees who go through menopause will go through it at work and over half of menstruators have period pains that directly affect their work5.
Nick Dean, COO and Co-Founder of HeyFlow highlights the importance of this initiative, but it shouldn’t be the endpoint for employers:
“A large part of the lack of inclusion of reproductive health at work is due to societal taboos around the topics, and a lack of readily available information. You don’t know what you don’t know, so we’re so excited to launch these guides to give companies their first step into reproductive health inclusion. But a good policy is only the start. To embed effective change in a business you need to embed inclusion within your culture and bring everyone into the conversation; educating employees on available resources and supporting managers with training on how to implement policy properly.”
HeyFlow’s initiative aims to standardise reproductive health policies across industries, ensuring fair and consistent support for all employees. By offering these guides, HeyFlow is leading the charge in promoting workplace wellness and setting a new benchmark for inclusivity.
For more information about HeyFlow’s Reproductive Health Policy Guides and to access the Menstruation and Menopause guides, please visit https://heyflow.co.uk/ or contact hello@heyflow.co.uk .
The Founder of Bristol-based MotherBoard, Sophie Creese won the Lead 5050 award for ‘Contribution to Gender Diversity’ on 4th November at the 7th annual Lead5050 Awards held in Berlin, Germany.
The Lead5050 Awards celebrate the people working for an equitable world, they recognise innovative individual and organisational initiatives that address the advancement of women. All professionals who won have changed workplaces and lives.
“MotherBoard has been highlighting the connection between motherhood and lack of gender equity within the tech industry for the past few years. Being recognised for the work we are doing at MotherBoard with a Lead 5050 ‘Contribution to Gender Equality’ Award has been an honour and further validation of the importance of continuing to shift the dial for future gender parity by supporting employers and our community to be more inclusive of mums.”
Sophie Creese, Founder of MotherBoard
About MotherBoard
// 50% of women leave the tech industry before age 35. Let’s change that.
MotherBoard is a Business Charter, Community, and Event Series driving tangible change for mums working in the tech industry. We are on a mission to transform the industry to be more inclusive of women & mothers by tackling stigmas and supporting employers who want to create real change. Powered by ADLIB, sponsored by Not On The High Street .
// 50% of women leave the tech industry before age 35. Let’s change that.
In today’s rapidly changing world, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are not just buzzwords; they’re powerful pillars that drive success, enhance problem-solving and fuel innovation within organizations. Recognising the significance of DEI, creative technology agency Aer Studios enlisted the help of HeyFlow to build a stronger and more inclusive workplace that would support their existing workforce better and prepare them for a wider range of experiences as the team grows.
Central to Aer’s new strategy was the desire to foster comfortable conversations around reproductive health and its significant impact on the workplace. And the best way to do that was to create a more informed and open dialogue to pave the way for greater understanding and empathy among employees.
Enlisting the help of Hey Flow they designed a two-step approach. Firstly, a comprehensive companywide survey to gauge the current level of understanding and comfort levels related to reproductive health in the workplace, assess management’s knowledge of existing policies and identify areas for further education.
Based on the insights gained from the survey, HeyFlow then hosted a half-day workshop for the entire team at Aer Studios that focused on key points to bridge the knowledge gap, foster open conversations, and drive positive change.
The impact of the workshop was evident, with 93% of participants left feeling comfortable discussing all reproductive health topics covered during the session. More impressively, 36.2% of participants felt significantly more comfortable discussing these topics than before the workshop.
The workshop also generated seven employee-raised initiatives to create a more inclusive and supportive workplace culture that could be presented to management for consideration as their DEI strategy was being further developed.
“We knew that as part of our ongoing DEI charter, there needed to be a particular focus on gender equality. But if we were going to play a role in tackling the gender imbalance and systemic issues we face in the tech industries, we were going to need some help. Working with the brilliant team at HeyFlow has created a more open dialogue among the team and inspired new policies to better support women at all stages in their reproductive journeys. If you are looking for impactful and meaningful ways to further your DEI efforts, I would highly recommend HeyFlow”
Tom Harber, Managing Director, Aer Studios
Reproductive health doesn’t stop while you’re at work. And by their partnership with HeyFlow, Aer Studios have set a precedent of ensuring companies are building on inclusive foundations that work for their current workforce. If you’re interested in finding out more about HeyFlow and how they can help you understand your female* workforce better then get in touch at hello@heyflow.co.uk
We are excited to announce the official launch of HeyFlow.
HeyFlow is here to help businesses understand the female workforce better, equipping managers with the confidence, practical skills and knowledge that will reduce absenteeism and increase the retention and attraction of women, at all stages of their career.
It is widely recognised that women are leaving the workforce, absenteeism is increasing and there are significant skills shortages across multiple industries in the UK. The link between absenteeism, attraction and retention of women in the workplace directly links to the understanding the impact of female reproductive health in the workplace.
That’s where HeyFlow comes in. An insight-driven data surveying and L&D tool that empowers businesses to build a truly inclusive company by understanding the impact of female reproductive health in the workplace, identifying and implementing management development opportunities and policy advancement.
With the combined expertise of the Founder of not-for-profit MotherBoard, Sophie Creese, Nick Dean, CEO of ADLIB / B Corp Ambassador, and Sabrina Walls, Marketing Director of ADLIB / Marketing Lead of MotherBoard, the Co-Founders of HeyFlow have intricate knowledge of how purpose, understanding and knowledge can drive positive change for businesses, driving significantly improved retention, attraction and absenteeism levels.
HeyFlow has been created to provide a solution for all businesses. From a management introduction to the female reproductive cycle and its potential impact in the workplace, through detailed employee surveying and coaching on periods, pregnancy, maternity and menopause (amongst much more).
HeyFlow provides unrivalled insight into a company’s female workforce and provides understanding of the gap between feeling and policy. Through our insight surveying we provide clear actionable solutions and offer consultancy and training to upskill employees to better support their teams.
Our starting product focuses on cisgender females, our roadmap progresses into a much wider employee community where there is an essential need to understand underrepresented people.
We’re looking forward to being part of a solution that is much needed by businesses and women alike.
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