Breast cancer screening isn’t just a medical issue. It’s a market failure. When detected at stage one, breast cancer is nearly 99% survivable, typically requiring less aggressive treatment and resulting in better outcomes. Early detection allows women to remain fully present – at work, with family and free from the devastation of a late-stage diagnosis.
Yet standard screening in the U.S. routinely excludes women under 40, the demographic experiencing rising breast cancer rates, and fails the nearly half of women with dense breast tissue, where mammograms can miss cancers. The result: an estimated 42,170 U.S. women will die from breast cancer in 2025. That figure reflects a system where early detection and tailored screening still fall short.
Now a generation of women founders and investors who lived those failures are rebuilding the system. Bailey Renger, founder of BeSound, is one of them. Her vision is simple and radical at once. As Renger shared in a Zoom interview, “The goal is to make breast cancer a disease women no longer die from.”
Innovating Breast Cancer Screening and Why It Matters
Renger’s conviction comes from personal experience. After facing a health scare involving a solid mass, she struggled to receive imaging tests that could provide clarity. Insurance restrictions delayed access, preventing her from receiving objective data about her own body. That gap became her mission for BeSound.
BeSound works with OB/GYN and other medical practices to bring ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging technology directly into their offices, supported by independent physician groups. Though not a replacement for mammograms, the platform provides supplemental screening options.
Dr. Anjeanette T. Brown, Director of the Breast Center of New Jersey, explained over email why a supplemental approach matters: “For women with dense breast tissue, supplemental screening like ultrasound or MRI can be critical. Mammography can miss certain cancers, particularly invasive lobular carcinoma, which grows subtly and blends with dense tissue.”
The photoacoustic technology, used for diagnostic purposes where clinically indicated, provides radiologists with data on oxygenation and vascularity, helping distinguish benign from malignant tissue. That precision matters when 80% of potentially painful biopsies turn out to be benign. The technology aims to spare women the anxiety, pain and unnecessary procedures.
It’s the kind of innovation that seems obvious once you hear it. Accessible and designed with empathy.
Women’s Health: Founded By Women, For Women
The fact that BeSound’s innovation emerged from a woman founder isn’t incidental; it’s foundational. Medical research and device development have historically centered male bodies as the default. Renger points out, “Many breast imaging companies are led by men, who do not regularly undergo mammograms themselves.” That shapes everything: what gets funded, how pain is measured and whose health gets prioritized.
BeSound’s ecosystem challenges that pattern. Its founders, advisors and investors have personally experienced the problems the company aims to solve – including Muse Capital co-founders Rachel Springate and Assia Grazioli-Venier, early investors in BeSound.
Springate was in Europe announcing a deal when Grazioli-Venier called in the middle of the night with life-changing news: breast cancer. Springate immediately got on a flight, moved in and became Grazioli-Venier’s family through a double mastectomy and months of treatment. As technologists, they struggled to reconcile how services like Uber and Instacart existed while women’s healthcare lagged behind. As Springate puts it, “Out of a really dark situation came literally a company that was built to fund women that are trying to solve for these issues.”
Muse Capital invests in overlooked opportunities across women’s health, sports and family life – companies improving how we care, play and live. When Springate and Grazioli-Venier met Renger, they saw exactly what they’d been looking for. As Springate observed, “Bailey really understood it from a woman’s point of view and could build technology that was created for us.”
That mission resonated deeply with BeSound advisors like Lavinia Errico, co-founder of Equinox and a longtime advocate for women’s health innovation. Together, this network isn’t just funding progress – they’re redefining expertise. BeSound’s approach demonstrates clearly that empathy is more than better care. It’s better business.
The Overlooked Opportunity in Women’s Health
Women’s health is economic infrastructure, not a niche concern. Gaps in access to early breast cancer screening impact both lives and livelihoods. Breast cancer remains among the leading causes of missed workdays and long-term disability for women. Yet early detection can significantly reduce treatment complexity, enhance recovery and keep women present in their professional lives.
The economic case is clear. Yet investors have historically overlooked women’s health. Springate vividly recalled pitching ventures ten years ago, only to be “laughed out of rooms” by predominantly male investors who considered concerns like menopause trivial. But as she emphasized, women’s health represents a “multi-billion-dollar opportunity hiding in plain sight.”
BeSound represents the kind of investment that creates value beyond returns. Its proactive approach means better outcomes for underserved populations and fewer disruptions across their professional and personal lives. As Springate observed, investing in women’s health innovation is about both improving care and unlocking substantial opportunity.
The Future of Breast Cancer Prevention
BeSound’s ultimate goal extends beyond advancing breast imaging. Renger envisions a future where proactive, accessible screening becomes routine, affordable and universal.
Scans through BeSound’s platform are currently $350, with plans to make them increasingly affordable over time. The company plans to expand nationwide, deploying mobile units to reach women in underserved and rural areas.
Dr. Brown notes the power of the barriers that keep women from early detection: “Economic status often dictates whether patients can travel for second opinions or afford advanced imaging and genetic testing. Structural barriers, such as a limited availability of highly trained physicians in rural or underserved areas, further compound the problem.”
BeSound’s vision is a future where these challenges no longer determine a woman’s chance at early detection – or survival. Renger translated her own experience of advocating for care into building a company. The women funding her lived the failures that made it necessary. They’re not waiting for permission. They’re creating the system that should have existed all along.
This matters to anyone who employs women or has watched someone they care about navigate a system built without them in mind. And the stakeholders who see this clearly are already building the future.