| Developer(s) | Flo Health, Inc. |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 2015 |
| Operating system | iOS Android |
| Available in | 22 languages |
| Website | flo.health |
Flo is a health app that provides menstrual cycle and ovulation tracking as well as pregnancy tracking. [1]
Flo has over 380 million downloads worldwide and over 70 million monthly active users as of November 2024. [2] In mid-2024, it reached unicorn status, and became Europe’s first femtech unicorn.
The company has been the subject of significant scrutiny due to its history of misleading users about its data practices with reports indicating that it had shared users' sensitive health data with third parties without consent. In 2021, Flo settled an FTC complaint on its privacy practices. In 2024, a new class action suit against Flo for violating users' privacy was certified by the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
Flo was co-founded in 2015 by Dmitry and Yuri Gurski, in Belarus. [3] Dmitry serves as the company's CEO. [4] The company's development hubs are in London, Amsterdam and Vilnius. [5] [6]
In 2016, the company raised $1 million in seed round funding from Flint Capital and Haxus Venture Fund. [7] In 2017, Flo received an investment of $5 million from Flint Capital and model Natalia Vodianova with Vodianova helping develop an awareness campaign for the company. [3] [8] In 2018, Flo received an investment of $6 million from Mangrove Capital Partners, with participation from Flint Capital and Haxus, giving the company a valuation of $200 million. [9] In mid-2019, Flo received an additional investment of $7.5 million led by Founders Fund. [10] In early September 2021, Flo announced it closed $50M in a Series B financing, bringing the total capital raised to $65 million and company valuation to $800M led by VNV Global and Target Global. [11] [12] In July 2024, Flo announced it raised more than $200M in Series C financing from General Atlantic bringing its valuation beyond $1 billion. [13] [14] [15]
Flo was initially created as a period and ovulation tracking application. It now provides reminders of upcoming menstrual cycles and a place to record various other health symptoms such as contraceptive methods, vaginal discharge, water intake, pains, mood swings, and sexual activity. [1] The application is available on iOS and Android. [16]
In October 2023, Flo launched Flo for Partners, a feature that allows users to share their Flo data with their partner. [17]
In February 2019, it was alleged in reports that Flo had been sending users' health data to Facebook [18] without users' informed consent, [19] and in violation of Facebook's developer policies. [20] While Flo claimed it had never shared data with Facebook, it promised to stop data sharing and removed Facebook SDK from the application. It filed the request to delete all user data from Facebook Analytics and released an app update. [20] [21]
In September 2019, Privacy International published a report regarding data sharing for a number of period-tracking apps documenting how Flo exposed its users sensitive health data. [22] [23]
In response to the allegations of private data misuse, a complaint was filed against Flo Health, Inc by the Federal Trade Commission alleging that it had lied to its users about its privacy and data practices. [24] According to the FTC complaint, beginning in 2016, Flo had handed users' health information to "numerous third parties" including Google, Facebook, AppsFlyer, and Flurry and "took no action to limit what these companies could do with users' information". [25]
In 2021, Flo reached a settlement with the FTC in which it promised to stop misleading users about its data-handling practices and obtain users’ consent before sharing their health details. [26] [27] The agreement also required that Flo to undertake an independent privacy audit which it completed in March 2022. [20] [21] [24]
In September, 2022, as a response to Roe v. Wade being overturned, Flo sped up the release of a feature called “Anonymous Mode”. Flo claims this mode allows users to access the app without any personal identifiers such as name, email address, and technical identifiers from being associated with their health data. [28] [29] [30] [31]
In March 2024, the Supreme Court of British Columbia certified a class action suit against Flo for sharing intimate data with Facebook and other third parties without user knowledge. [32]
Flo was named to Bloomberg’s Top 25 UK Startups to Watch for 2024. [33]
Flo's Anonymous Mode feature was recognized on both Fast Company's World Changing Ideas 2023 [34] and TIME's Best Inventions List 2023. [35]
Flo is a CES 2019 Innovation Awards Honoree in the Software and Mobile Applications category. [36]
with our 3 largest employee hubs in London, Amsterdam and Vilnius. Our executive team is based in London and Kansas.
the company's largest office with the highest concentration of talent is located in Vilnius.
Fertilitetsappen Flo Health har säkrat 200 miljoner dollar från riskkapitalsbolaget General Atlantic, och blir där med den första digitala appen för kvinnohälsa att värderas till över 1 miljard dollar, rapporterar Financial Times.