A woman wanting to track her menstrual cycle can find hundreds of apps on the market. But years of suffering side effects from birth control inspired Ida Tin to go further in helping women better understand their bodies. Launched in 2013 by the former motorcycle guide from Denmark, Clue is a user-friendly free app rated top by U.S. journal Obstetrics and Gynecology for accuracy and has 31 different tracking categories, from pain level and PMS to exercise and sleep. Its 10 million active users around the world have also given the company the largest data set on menstruation in existence.
“This is a historic opportunity to advance research for global female health and reproductive health, both of which are vastly under-served and under-researched,” says 39-year-old Tin, based in Berlin. In the past year, Clue has partnered with academic institutions like the Kinsey Institute, Stanford University, Columbia University, and the University of Oxford, to help scientists better understand everything from symptom patterns and disease detection to female attitudes toward condom use. This spring, the team also launched helloclue.com, a website dedicated to dispelling myths about, and sharing information on, women’s health. “No other company in our space does these things,” Tin says. —Naina Bajekal