Cindy Santa Cruz is a single mother, the Founder and CEO of start-up, Lady Patch, and was recently announced as one of the top four finalists of this year’s P&G Ventures Innovation Challenge. P&G Ventures, the early-stage startup studio within Procter & Gamble, recently announced the top four finalists of this year’s Innovation Challenge – an opportunity for startups to present their groundbreaking product ideas to a panel of expert judges.
Lady Patch is the only drug-free feminine patch that prevents bladder leaks and the frequent urge to urinate. Lady Patch was invented by Santa Cruz’s mother after dealing with bladder leaks during her workouts.
After Santa Cruz’s daughter started kindergarten, she was contemplating going back to work, when she remembered her mother’s invention and decided to try to turn it into something. Thirteen years later, the product is selling on Amazon and is bringing awareness to incontinence and this unique, drug free solution.
Helping women has always been a driving force for Santa Cruz throughout her entrepreneurial journey. Incontinence affects one in three women, especially right after child birth. Santa Cruz knows the negative impact incontinence has, and has seen firsthand how Lady Patch can drastically improve the quality of a woman’s life.
The Innovation challenge will be taking place at CES in January 2022. Finalists have the chance to win $10,000 and the opportunity to work with P&G Ventures to continue developing their product, part of its mission to discover the next billion-dollar business for parent company Procter & Gamble.
Cindy Santa Cruz shares that the opportunity to pitch during the innovation challenge can help her make an impact, “Being a finalist in this challenge means so much to me. Its overwhelming actually. It’s one step closer to reaching the women that have never heard of our tiny start up, that could probably use our help.”
The finalist pitch event will be held at 9:30am (PT) on Thursday, January 6 at CES in Eureka Park, the space for startup exhibitors.
Entrepreneurs, inventors, and startups in the fast-moving consumer goods space were invited to submit to the Innovation Challenge. Of particular interest were innovations in non-toxic home and garden, active aging, healthy skin, helping parents, go-anywhere clean, daily wellness, and food waste reduction. Submissions for this year’s Innovation Challenge reached record numbers, as did the percentage of submissions with a female founder (60%), and the number of submissions from Black and Latinx founders (30%).
“The P&G Ventures Innovation Challenge provides a fantastic opportunity for us to connect with entrepreneurs and startups who could partner with us to build new brands and businesses that improve consumers’ lives,” said Guy Persaud, President of New Business for Procter & Gamble. “We are inspired by the enthusiastic response to this year’s Challenge. We congratulate our finalists and can’t wait to see them pitch live at CES, the most influential tech event of the year.”