Iman Clark, CEO of Prickly Pear Health, says she had an epiphany that eventually led her to TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025.
It was around nine years ago. She moved from Tunisia to the U.S. for grad school, then joined a company that created gamified experiences for people with neurodegenerative conditions, like dementia. This was done by giving them a tablet or a computer and letting them play games while doctors collected data on them, like their risk of falling and overall range of motion.
“I realized that most people, 75-plus, have two to three chronic conditions, and no matter what we did, it is always going to be hard,” she told TechCrunch. “Then I went back to the research and saw that like, 70% of the Alzheimer’s population are women.”
She dug deeper and found that women were twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and three to four times more likely to be diagnosed with migraines. “That’s when I realized we are not really solving for women’s biology, and that is costing us lives and dollars.”
So she created Prickly Pear Health, which provides medical support for women’s brain health, a voice-first, AI-powered companion that helps women in their 30s to 50s navigate the hormonal changes that affect brain health. The product lets people record quick reflections throughout the day using their voice and Prickly Pear’s AI technology analyzes their language and context to track any cognitive changes.
Prickly Pear Health will show of its tech at TechCrunch Disrupt, which runs October 27 to 29 in San Francisco.
It also pulls in sleep data, heart rate activity, and other metrics from trackers like Apple Health, Oura, and Garmin to help offer personalized insights on how they can take better care of their health.
Clark said there is a collective agreement that women’s health is a space ripe for innovation, and that women want to be founders, want to be top voices, and are tired of being in the back seats of their own lives.
Clark officially launched a free version of her product in May and is gearing up to launch the premium offering in October, for Mental Health Awareness Month and Menopause Awareness Month.
She started doing focus groups at Arizona State University and found that women in their late 30s to early 50s were reporting a lot of brain fog and mental fatigue, but it often took them until their 60s to realize it had to do with hormonal fluctuations, menopause, or even an onset of something deeper. It was here that Clark realized she wanted to focus on this age range.
“They’re often dismissed or misdiagnosed when symptoms like brain fog, mood shifts, or irregular cycles first appear,” she said of women in their 30s to 50s, adding that these midlife years are critical to brain health, but traditional care is failing to connect the dots.
“We’re addressing that gap. Helping women recognize and act on early signals before they escalate into more serious health challenges later,” she said.
Arizona is also where the inspiration for the company’s name came from. She became fascinated with the cacti, how they stand despite the heat and produce healthy fruit. “That’s when Prickly Pear came to life because that’s the fruit that grows in the cactus tree, and it was an inspiration of thriving in harsh conditions and joyful resilience,” she said.
She considers competitors in her same field to be existing menopause apps, which, she said, are more like symptom trackers. “We believe it’s important to understand symptoms, but we believe that those approaches are reactive approaches, while for us, we are there to be able to detect things.”
She raised a $350,000 pre-seed round and said it was “really hard,” especially as a woman of color. “We had to be so good that you cannot be ignored,” she said. She sought to build relationships with investors before starting her pre-seed, which, she said, really helped when it came time for the ask. “That’s a popular thing we say: ‘Ask for advice and you get business, ask for business and you get advice sometimes,’” she said.
Some advice she received was to apply for Startup Battlefield, with friends telling her to be loud and proud about being part of the latest startups to pitch during the competition.
“Disrupt is the ultimate stage for new ideas,” she said. She’s excited to spotlight women’s brain health, learn from other founders, and, of course, “connect with investors and partners who believe, like we do, that women’s health innovation is not niche, it’s the future of healthcare.”
If you want to learn from Prickly Pear firsthand, and see dozens of additional pitches, valuable workshops, and make the connections that drive business results, head here to learn more about this year’s Disrupt, held October 27 to 29 in San Francisco.
