Charlotte startup Amissa is on a mission to transform menopause care.
Part clinical workflow optimizer and part patient lifeline, the company’s flagship platform is designed to seamlessly integrate daily patient symptom tracking into medical practices, ensuring that women navigating menopause receive validated, highly personalized clinical support.
More specifically, Amissa functions as the crucial “plumbing” that bridges the gap between patient-logged data and busy healthcare providers, enabling clinicians to make informed treatment decisions in seconds.
Sam Smith, Co-Founder and CEO of Amissa, stepped into the startup arena with 15 years of industry experience. But it was a background in journalism that instilled in her a deep, restless curiosity for solving systemic human problems.
“As a journalist, you have to make a judgment call,” Smith reflects. “Do you want to report on history, or do you want to be a part of history? You see a problem, you want to know why it exists, and then suddenly you find yourself building the solution.”
Further driven by a desire to address a long-overlooked area of women’s healthcare, Smith became an Amissa co-founder to drive its efforts to empower both patients and the clinicians treating them. The effort was fueled by generations of quiet endurance.
“My mom went through two decades of unnecessary suffering and pain,” Smith shares. “Anytime I have a hard day, she tells me, ‘Never forget the women you are helping. Don’t let them down.’ We are at this incredible inflection point where, if we get this right, we can make a massive dent in how women live their lives.”
Designing the digital plumbing for women’s health
To validate their concept, the Amissa team hit the ground running with extensive customer discovery, ultimately speaking with over 500 clinicians, researchers, health system leaders and patients.
The team’s research uncovered a critical training and care gap in mainstream medicine: 93% of obstetrician-gynecologist and primary care physician residents do not feel comfortable managing menopausal symptoms.
To combat the exact pain points discovered through research, Amissa built a platform that translates raw patient data into clinical utility. While popular wearables like Oura and Whoop track general metrics, clinicians rarely have the time to sift through fragmented data points during a 15-minute appointment.
“If you’re an everyday OB/GYN, why would you learn to adopt a wearable’s PDF into your workflow when it only works for a tiny fraction of your patient panel?” Smith asked. “What clinicians need is the plumbing to make that data useful.”
Aiming to provide just that, Amissa leverages AI to consolidate patient-tracked symptoms, Electronic Health Record (EHR) data, and clinical resources into a concise, 30-second summary. Clinicians can review this digest immediately before stepping into the exam room.
This targeted approach has already driven high engagement. Amissa’s monthly active usage rates significantly exceed industry standards, proving that patients are highly incentivized to track their symptoms when they know their clinician is actively using the data. On average, patients on the platform track 120 symptoms per month.
Furthermore, the clinical impact of this data pipeline is already clear. In one instance, a local clinician utilized Amissa’s detailed tracking history to precisely adjust medication for a patient struggling with menopause-related depression, bringing immediate relief to a difficult-to-manage symptom.
Funding the movement: from grassroots to institutional backing
Amissa’s early development was catalyzed by backing from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which provided a vital financial buffer during the customer discovery phase. More recently, the startup solidified its growth trajectory by partnering with Primordial Ventures (GrepBeat’s sister company).
That relationship blossomed organically after Smith met Primordial’s Jenn Summe at a local charity stand-up comedy event, where Smith actually performed a 10-minute set to raise money for girls in STEM. Following months of relationship building and progress tracking, Primordial committed to the investment.
Amissa is initially piloting its application with local clinicians in Charlotte to refine the user experience. To accelerate their reach, the team participated in the prestigious Techstars AI Health program in Baltimore, unlocking critical networks with major organizations like MedStar, Johns Hopkins and Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Raising and scaling
As Amissa works on closing its current funding round, Smith is balancing the immense weight of early-stage fundraising with the arrival of her newborn baby, who was born just a week after Techstars Demo Day.
In fact, that intense balancing act culminated in what might be the ultimate startup fundraising story: pitching from an operating table. Forty weeks pregnant and mid-prep for a scheduled C-section, Smith felt anxiety creeping in. To distract her, her anesthesiologist, Dr. Toyosi “Toy” Ogunkua, asked about her work. Still programmed from weeks of Techstars drills, Smith began reciting her Amissa pitch.
Dr. Toy’s response? “Are you raising on a SAFE?”
As it turned out, Dr. Toy was an active angel investor. While ensuring Smith couldn’t feel anything from the waist down, the two talked business. A few days later, after reviewing Amissa’s data room post-delivery, Dr. Toy officially committed to the round, proving that the right investors can truly be found in the most unexpected places.
This extraordinary collision of Smith’s personal and professional life exemplified the momentum of her journey. But it also begs a tough question:
“How do you skip maternity leave? How do you keep fighting to close your pre-seed round and secure that big contract?” Smith asks.
QUICK BITS
Startup: Amissa
Co-Founders: Sam Smith, Jon Corkey, Kristina Furlan
Founded: 2017
Team size: 3
Location: Charlotte
Website: amissa.com
Funding: NIH-backed and finalizing pre-seed round
For Smith, the answer lies in the collective strength of her team, to which she is quick to redirect the spotlight.
“In these interviews, it’s so easy for it to sound like a series of ‘I’ statements,” Smith said. “But I have a really awesome team helping at every single step of the way. Every breath of what we are building is a collective effort. It simply wouldn’t be possible without all of us rowing in the same direction and believing in this mission through the day-to-day toughness of startup life. Kudos to them.”
Looking forward, the startup’s ultimate goal is to become the primary infrastructure arm for menopause support across national health systems and medical practices. By targeting key distribution channels and scaling their technical infrastructure, Smith and her team are determined to systematically dismantle the menopause care gap, ensuring that no woman has to experience unnecessary, unsupported suffering during this major life transition.
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