London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Oct 06, 2025

Concern Grows Around Billionaire Peter Thiel's Period-Tracking App

Concern Grows Around Billionaire Peter Thiel's Period-Tracking App

Peter Thiel, billionaire entrepreneur and top campaign donor has decided to back a "femtech" app called 28, created by the divisive Evie Magazine.
The app, created by a controversial women's publication called Evie Magazine, claims to be a "cycle-based" nutrition and wellness program that helps women "reclaim control of [their] bodies, in the most natural way possible."

Neither the billionaire's venture firm Thiel Capital nor Thiel himself are strangers to health and life science investments, but funding a fertility startup is a bit of a turn, especially at a moment during which a lot of Americans have just lost, rather than reclaimed, a significant degree of bodily autonomy.

And a closer look at the app, and those who made it, illuminates a powerful political intersection between tech, health, the wellness industry, and modern conservatism in which conspiracy theories and dubious pseudoscience are feeding a growing counter-counter-culture.

For starters, the science is sketchy. The core premise of the app appears to get women off modern birth control methods, like the hormonal pill or an intrauterine device. Its website is almost comically vague on what the alternative might be, but a focus on "cycles" suggests that it's essentially the rhythm method, which basically entails attempting to avoid sex during ovulation. That's fine in principle, but the rhythm method is statistically quite ineffective, with about a quarter of couples using it accidentally becoming pregnant over the average year.

The publication behind the app raises even more questions. Evie appears to be somewhat of a Cosmopolitan-meets-MindBodyGreen-meets-Tomi Lahren situation: makeup, workout, and holistic wellness tips and tricks are sandwiched between transphobic essays and anti-vaxx arguments. Its anti-birth control cycle-tracking app — which, yes, requires that women input potentially incriminating menstruation data — seems like a natural extension of that apparent mission: the rejection of a very specific version of "feminism" in order to embrace an old-meets-new version of traditional femininity.

"With love, we embrace our nature and our bodies, and care for them the way they deserve," reads 28's website. "With courage, we asked questions that were unpopular, challenged the status quo, and didn't wait for society's permission."

"Women were tired of the pill and the negative impact it's had on their brains and bodies. They were getting off it in droves and looking for natural alternatives," the magazine and app's co-founder Brittany Hugoboom recently told TechCrunch, adding that "we want to democratize the science of hormone and menstrual health. And provide women everywhere with tangible tools to physically and emotionally flourish."

It's true that many women have experienced adverse reactions to the pill. It's also true that women, especially women of color, have long been left out of medical studies, and tend to face mistreatment by the medical establishment.

But even with those realities in mind, 28's anti-birth control rhetoric discounts the fact that there are many, many different kinds contraceptives these days, with no one-size-fits-all to reproductive care. It's also true that the demonization of hormonal birth control specifically has become a sort of rallying cry in certain circles of the women's wellness community, where skepticism and conspiracy theories, cult-followed "conspiritualist" influencers like Kelly Brogan, and "doing your own research" reign supreme. Somehow, in these growing communities, embracing the pill is to reject an inherent womanhood, and rejecting the pill, in turn, is the only path to "healthy hormones, self-discovery, and a beautiful, feminine physique," as 28 claims.

This anti-contraceptive ethos fits into a Evie's broader anti-abortion, pro-life messaging. One 2021 Evie story, titled "Argentina, A Hot Spot For Human Trafficking, Just Legalized Abortion," argued — falsely — that "trafficking, abuse, and abortion are inextricably, intrinsically linked," while many of its other stories make similarly dubious anti-abortion claims. More than one suggest that the abortion pill is bad for women, while another claims that abortion is an "anti-woman issue that has nothing to do with bodily autonomy or reproductive freedom." And as Vice points out, Hugoboom's personal Twitter account is riddled with anti-feminist, pro-life rhetoric. (The magazine, in the face of all this, claims to be apolitical.)

That all being said, what could Thiel possibly want with an app like this? Other popular cycle-tracking apps already exist. Why would he want in on 28?

Of course, he could want the data, which has been a concern regarding some of Thiel's past investments, especially those related to his CIA-backed data analytics firm Palantir (Hugoboom has claimed that 28's data is protected, although Vice points out that details as to how are scarce and flawed). Vice also turns to the famous contrarian's well-documented penchant for funding and participating in bizarre health treatments, many of which center on an apparent interest with youth and living forever — an obsession shared by many in the tech industry, where the strangest of wellness treatments and "biohacks" run amuck.

But Thiel isn't only in the tech industry, nor is he just interested in funding startups. He's also in the business of campaign financing, and most of the campaigns that the billionaire has recently funded (Arizona candidate Blake Masters, Ohio candidate J.D. Vance, and former president Donald Trump, to name a few) share the Evie principles: anti-woke, anti-abortion, anti-feminism, anti-trans, and so on. Funding Evie isn't just a business bet. It's a political one, too. And in post-Roe America, Evie Magazine and 28, unfortunately, both seem like safe bets to make.

"I tried to follow the science, but it simply was not there," reads a graphic, recently retweeted by Hugoboom. "I then followed the money, and that's where I found the science."

Oddly poignant, no?
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
×