Meghan Markle has reportedly invested in a women’s health startup company backed by actresses Amy Schumer and Connie Britton as …
Meghan Markle has reportedly invested in a women’s health startup company backed by actresses Amy Schumer and Connie Britton as she builds up a business portfolio.
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Duchess of Sussex is said to have been among a series of high-profile women who joined a $63million (£49million) investment round in Midi Health in March 2024.
And Meghan told business magazine Fortune, which revealed the news: ‘Women need to see that they can build. Women don’t need to be afraid to talk about finance. And I think the more financial literacy we have, the stronger we’re going to be.’
The company had announced last September that 80 investors had put in between $10,000 (£8,000) and ‘$500,000+’ (£385,000+) each in a so-called ‘Series B’ round.
Now, Fortune has reported seven months later that Meghan was one of the investors in Midi Health, with a source also confirming her involvement to TechCrunch.
The firm based in Los Altos, California, provides a virtual platform to help women aged over 35 going through the menopause and other health-related concerns.
The Duchess is described as an ‘angel investor’, typically a high-net worth individual who provides money to a start-up, usually in exchange for equity in the company.
Meghan has invested in more than ten companies so far since relocating to the US with Prince Harry in 2020 in sectors such as consumer, fintech (technology-enabled financial innovation) and edtech (educational technology), according to the source.
The 43-year-old has focused on firms with at least one female founder, the insider added – including coffee brand Clevr and haircare and wellness company Highbrow Hippie. These investments were revealed in 2020 and last November respectively.
Last September, Midi Health announced that ‘a high-powered group of women leaders and icons spanning entertainment, professional sports, media, beauty and fashion, health and wellness, technology and business’ had invested in the firm.
Among the new investors it mentioned by name at the time were Trainwreck star and comedian Schumer as well as White Lotus and Nashville actress Connie Britton.
Which high-profile US women are involved as Midi Health investors?
- Meghan, Duchess of Sussex
- Amy Schumer, actress
- Connie Britton, actress
- Brandi Chastain, US soccer player
- Tory Burch, fashion designer
- Sheryl Sandberg, former Meta chief operating officer
- Maya Harris, theatre producer
- Kara Nortman, Angel City FC co-founder
- Tekedra Mawakana, Waymo co-chief executive
- Jennifer Tejada, PagerDuty chief executive
- Claire Hughes Johnson, Stripe executive
- Elena Gomez, Toast chief financial officer
Also involved were American soccer legend Brandi Chastain, fashion designer Tory Burch and former Meta chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg.
Theatre producer Maya Harris, the niece of US Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris, was on the list too.
Other named individuals were Angel City FC co-founder Kara Nortman, Waymo co-chief executive Tekedra Mawakana, PagerDuty boss Jennifer Tejada, Stripe executive Claire Hughes Johnson and Toast chief financial officer Elena Gomez.
The company said ‘top executives’ from OpenAI, Atlassian, Databricks, Cloudflare, Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Life360, Calm, Universal Music Group and Warner Media also joined the investment round.
In addition, it said: ‘Reflecting Midi’s focus on this demographic and the importance of culturally responsive care, the investor group includes women aged 35 to 60+ and 40 per cent people of colour.’
The company described itself as being involved in the ‘$600billion (£460billion) women’s health market’ and spoke of the ‘power of strong women leaders coming together to invest in companies that need to exist while also expanding wealth creation and generating financial returns’.
Midi Health is covered in the US by ‘preferred provider organisation’, a plan that provides insurance to people through a network of healthcare providers.
However it is not covered by Medicare, a federal health insurance programme for people age 65 or older and younger people with disabilities.
Its website says the cost of an initial virtual ‘visit’ by a Midi Health clinician for those ‘self-paying’ is $250 (£192), followed by $150 (£115) for continued visits.
Last month, Schumer mentioned Midi Health in a video about her experiences with weight-loss medication and also appeared to make a joke about Meghan.
She has previously spoken about struggling with nausea symptoms while taking Ozempic, but said in March that she had a much better experience with Mounjaro.
Schumer revealed she was prescribed the medication – as well as oestrogen and progesterone to help with perimenopause symptoms – via Midi Health, and had such a positive experience with the firm that she ended up investing in it.
Meghan Markle hopes As Ever will ‘bring joy’ during ‘recession’ and says why tariffs won’t hit her
She then concluded: ‘That’s all I have to say, and I’m not gonna talk any s***, I’m not gonna stir the pot… but why don’t we have to call Kate Middleton, Kate of Wales?’
This came after the Duchess told comedian Mindy Kaling during her Netflix show With Love, Meghan: ‘I’m surprised you keep saying, Meghan Markle, you know, I’m Sussex now.’
During the Fortune interview, Meghan also said she does not expect Donald Trump’s tariffs to impact her As Ever range – and hopes her products will bring ‘joy’ during a ‘time of recession’.
The first items from the Duchess of Sussex’s lifestyle brand sold out within an hour of going on sale last Wednesday – the day the President announced his levies.
But she has insisted that her products, including jam, tea and honey, will weather uncertain economic times because they are all made in America.
Meghan said: ‘All of our products are currently made in the US, so we don’t anticipate tariffs affecting us directly.
‘But, as we look at the larger context of how this is going to affect the consumer day-to-day, I’m very grateful that in part of the conception of this brand, I wanted to create products that look more prestige, but are more accessible and affordable.
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‘I think during any time of recession, people still want to find creature comforts, items that can bring them joy.’
She pointed out that the ‘bulk of our SKUs’ (stock keeping units) cost under $20 (£16), adding: ‘From our standpoint, certainly for me, even in the expansion of the brand, things should still feel accessible.’
Meghan’s $14 (£11) jam and a collection of herbal teas, flower sprinkles and luxury honey were snapped up by shoppers as soon as As Ever began taking online orders.
While the exact number of products sold has not been confirmed, the company said it was ‘tens of thousands’. Some of the goods featured in With Love, Meghan.
The Duchess also revealed she had been sending Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria and co-chief executive Ted Sarandos homemade jams for years.
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She said Ms Bajaria told her: ‘You need to teach people how to do this.’ Meghan added: ‘From that moment she was very excited about the possibility of a show.’
The duchess was encouraged to talk to the Netflix consumer products team and As Ever became a joint venture.
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She said: ‘I can’t speak to the specifics of the terms. We are very, very much in harmony on how we see the growth of this, and the trajectory over the next five to seven years.’
Meghan has been promoting her new business in recent days alongside her new podcast Confessions of a Female Founder, with the first episode released on Tuesday.
Meanwhile her husband Harry has been in Europe, and yesterday met war victims in Ukraine in an unannounced visit to the Superhumans Centre in Lviv.
That came after the Duke appeared at court in London earlier in the week at an appeal regarding his level of security in the UK.
Harry is challenging the dismissal of his High Court legal action against the Home Office over the decision of the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) that he should receive a different degree of taxpayer-funded protection when in the country.
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