On September 1, 2026, Oxford-based birthtech startup PeriPear announced it has raised £1.2 million across an oversubscribed pre-seed round and Innovate UK grant funding, as it prepares to take its perineal injury prevention device into first-in-human trials. The round was led by HERmesa, with participation from Zinc, SyndicateRoom Access, Sie Ventures, Mint, InvestinWomen, and Femtech Lab in partnership with Joanne Invests — the last of which made PeriPear the first investment from its new syndicate. More than 90% of PeriPear's existing investors backed the round, alongside angels Andrea Sinclair and Lavender Ventures' Gail Armstrong.

Why It Matters

Maternal birth injury is quietly becoming an investable category rather than a charity cause, and PeriPear's cap table shows it: a syndicate of women's-health-specialist funds, a first check from a brand-new syndicate, and 90%+ existing-investor follow-on in a pre-seed. That last number is the tell — insiders doubling down at this stage usually means the technical risk retired faster than expected. For the sexual wellness industry specifically, the story sits at an under-served junction. Postpartum dyspareunia — pain during sex after childbirth — is one of the most common causes of sexual dysfunction in women of reproductive age, and the pleasure-products industry has largely addressed it downstream with lubricants, dilators and pelvic floor trainers. PeriPear is attacking it upstream, at the two-minute window where the injury actually happens. Prevention devices in this category have a much larger addressable population than rehabilitation devices, because the population is every vaginal birth. The regulatory sequencing is also worth noting for anyone building in femtech hardware. Choosing Singapore and the U.S. before the NHS is now a common pattern for UK medtech founders, and it says something uncomfortable about how long domestic adoption takes for a device whose entire value proposition is being used routinely in NHS delivery rooms.

The device automates something maternity wards already know works. Warm compresses applied to the perineum during the second stage of labour are an evidence-based way to reduce tearing, pain and episiotomy rates — but delivering them requires a midwife or clinician to manually hold a warm pad in place at the exact moment a baby is being born. In a busy unit, that depends entirely on staffing, timing, and whether anyone has a free hand. PeriPear's wearable applies the compress hands-free.

The clinical problem is enormous and chronically under-discussed. Per the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, up to nine in ten first-time mothers who give birth vaginally experience a tear, graze or episiotomy. Around 6% of first-time mothers sustain a third- or fourth-degree tear involving the anal sphincter. Most recover well; serious injuries can leave persistent pain, urinary or bowel problems, and pain during sex — which is precisely where a birth-injury device becomes a sexual-health device.

Co-founder Nina van Schaick spent 14 years as an NHS midwife before starting the company with healthtech founder Eviatar Natan. "PeriPear is the answer to years of professional frustration for me as a midwife on the frontlines of birth," she said, describing the gap between compelling evidence for warm compresses and the reality of expecting clinicians "to improvise to apply this in practice." On what clinicians can currently offer patients worried about tearing, she was blunter: "Clinicians do not have anything to offer currently beyond the reassurance that they will do their best with their experience, or use an episiotomy to prevent a severe tear. That's cold comfort if it's your perineum they are talking about or your episiotomy scar that interrupts pleasure for you for the rest of your life."

PeriPear is targeting its first human trial in Singapore in the second half of 2027 with the National University Health System, and plans to pursue Singapore and the U.S. markets ahead of wider NHS adoption — a sequencing van Schaick attributes to speed to patients rather than preference. The company is separately pursuing funding for large-scale UK trials with Warwick Clinical Trials Unit and NHS partners.

Sources

Update — 2026-09-02

Initial entry — story first created.