Amina Sugimoto

COO, fermata

Sydney

Born in Asia, raised in Africa and educated in Europe, Amina comes from a very diverse and multi-cultural background. As a child growing up in Africa, she volunteered at a local cancer hospital for children, where she experienced first-hand the absolute poverty and lack of access to basic healthcare in local communities. As an ambitious and caring individual, Amina has made it her mission to bring about a paradigm shift in healthcare in order to promote better access to medicine across the globe.

She moved to London where she obtained a Doctorate Degree in Public Health and Health Economics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and later moved back to Japan to work at the Health and Global Policy institute for Dementia. During her time working in healthcare, she saw an opportunity for additional focus on women’s health & education and decided to shift gears to advocate for FemTech solutions within the industry.

She joined Mistletoe Fund, a social impact-focused VC (backed by Taizo Son) based in Tokyo, as their Healthcare Innovation Producer and in 2019 launched fermata, Inc., a leading FemTech ecosystem in Japan in combination with fermata, Inc. Fund, an investment vehicle for global FemTech start-ups.