Meet the Mother & Daughter Duo Behind Google-Backed Femtech Brand

Published by Zara Shepherd-Brierley at January 16, 2023

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With three Ivy League degrees between them, Debbie and Markea Dickinson are the powerhouses behind Thermaband. The duo has raised over $1.5M with backing from the likes of Google for Startups.

Now Debbie Dickinson, co-founder and CEO, says Thermaband is looking to get the Thermaband Zone, the company’s first product, into the hands of customers and partners in the menopause space. The wrist-worn band will provide instant thermal relief for hot flashes, cold flashes, and night sweats.

The smart technology wearable device discreetly monitors users by detecting the smallest thermal shift. Zone detects changes to the body’s temperature while tracking heart rate and blood pressure. Comfort can also be activated on-demand manually.

Over 1B women are in menopause and 80% experience hot flashes. Interestingly, symptoms start earlier, last longer and are more intense for women of color, yet research on women’s health has lagged significantly, as has menopause education, support, and innovation.

Dickinson and her co-founder and daughter Markea Dickinson-Frasier have created Thermaband in collaboration with physicians, scientists, and a community of women. The product is a wearable bracelet that provides immediate and preemptive hot flash relief. Dickinson says. “I wanted a natural and discreet tech solution to enhance my quality of life.”

Like many femtech founders, Dickinson was led through her personal experience to create a solution to a female problem that the largely male-led tech industry had overlooked. She says, “Thermaband was inspired by my own struggles with hot flashes and night sweats as a perimenopausal woman. As an attorney, entrepreneur, mom, and wife, I found that it is difficult to manage responsibilities at work and home, and truly embrace life when experiencing debilitating hot flashes.”

Thermaband Addresses Gap In Women’s Health

A Harvard law and Wharton School of Business graduate, Debbie Dickinson is an experienced attorney, entrepreneur, and lecturer at Wharton. Like mother like daughter, Markea holds an MBA from Yale School of Management. Together, they are able to tap into a multigenerational marketplace. Debbie says “starting a company with my daughter to empower women has been an incredible blessing. I literally pinch myself periodically to make sure I’m not dreaming.” Both Debbie and Markea have substantial equity in the company.

Debbie highlights their shared passion for advocacy and for empowering women and children. Thermaband is addressing a gap in women’s health around the education and tech solutions to menopause. Debbie’s vision for the brand “is to be the standard of care for thermal health and symptom management.”

Hot on the science behind Thermaband, Debbie explains how the brand uses biometric health insights and thermoregulation to help women better cope with the effects of menopause. The Thermaband Zone uses technology to sense the onset of temperature changes, activating automatically to introduce warming or cooling sensations to achieve comfort. A companion app allows wearers to see insights into what is happening in their bodies, and information can even be shared with physicians to help manage symptoms and aid research.

With Thermaband featured in the likes of Forbes and Cosmopolitan, Dickinson is gratified “to see women open up more about their menopause journey.” Contrary to popular belief, menopause is a natural stage of life, not merely a short season: women can experience menopause for a third to half of their lives.

As education and conversations increase, we are now recognizing the massive scope and global effect on productivity levels in the workplace without menopause support. A shocking 20% of women experiencing symptoms have either quit their job or considered doing so due to lack of support. Thermaband is helping to ensure that “the US join the UK in the implementation of menopause policies and symptom support in the workplace” says Debbie.