There are approximately 4 million pregnant women each year in the US; millions more women are trying to conceive. However, the pregnancy journey hasn’t evolved significantly in the last 50 years. During the various stages of the reproductive lifecycle from pre-conception to post-partum, women are increasingly reliant on vitamins to ensure the proper hormonal balance to ensure the safest and most successful pregnancies. Perelel is the OB/GYN-founded vitamin brand that is tailored to each woman for each step of the pregnancy journey. The subscription-based direct-to-consumer brand provides high-quality, expertly-formulated vitamins that deliver the right nutrients at the right time. Each pack is gluten-free, non-GMO, soy-free, and contains no colorants or synthetic fillers. In addition to vitamins, expectant mothers become a part of the Perelel community with access to vetted, curated, medically-reliable resources and an embedded support network at a time that can be isolating and daunting – both before childbirth and postpartum. Every pack for each phase of the pregnancy journey is $48/month from pre-conception to the third trimester, making it very accessible.
LA TechWatch caught up with Perelel Cofounders Alex Taylor and Victoria (Tori) Thain Gioia to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, recent round of funding, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We closed our seed round of $4.7M in Spring 2022.
This round of funding was led by Unilever Ventures with participation from Willow Growth Partners, Courtney Reum, founder of M13, and other remarkable individual female investors including Raissa Gerona, chief brand officers of Revolve; Joan Nyugen, cofounder and CEO of Bumo; Julia Hunter, CEO of Jenni Kayne; and Ali Weiss, CMO of Glossier; Gaby Dalkin of What’s Gaby Cooking; Marissa Hermer, restaurateur and owner of the Draycott, Olivetta, and Issima; and model Rocky Barnes.
Tell us about your product or service.
Perelel is the first and only OB/GYN-founded vitamin brand offering clean, targeted nutrition for each distinct stage of a woman’s reproductive life cycle. All of our offerings extend beyond just a pill subscription in the form of an intimately supportive community and personalized resources at every step of a woman’s hormonal journey. Our subscribers have access to resources powered by Perelel’s founding doctors and practitioners (known as the Perelel Panel). With Perelel, women can rest-assured that they’re getting exactly what they need, when they need it most, from the foremost experts in women’s healthcare.
What inspired the start of Perelel?
We met a few years ago, we both had recently become new moms, and we both had a lot of startup experience. We were talking about this new “motherhood” chapter in our lives we were both experiencing and looked at how all of these new companies were catering to millennial moms and were frustrated by it. Personally, Tori’s daughter was born with a cleft lip – though she had no risk factors or genetic link. It really knocked here off her feet and she couldn’t understand why. She started doing a lot of research with her OB and learned that it was due to a folic acid deficiency from the first seven weeks of the pregnancy. Then she learned even more about prenatal vitamins themselves, although her prenatal HAD folic acid, it didn’t have folate, which is key. Most prenatals on the market use “Folic Acid” rather than a more absorbable form of folate, which is key.
Meanwhile, Alex was pregnant and was coming to this from a different place. She has a thyroid disease and because of that was really conscious of her regimen when she began her pregnancy journey, and started learning about the benefits of timing specific supplements to trimester. She supplemented her prenatal vitamin with CoQ10 when she was trying to conceive, added extra calcium during later trimesters, and paired an Omega that offered both high-quality DHA and EPA. She was chasing things down on Amazon, Target, at the OB, and it just felt like this really terrible, haphazard, and expensive approach that went against her personal principles of sustainability.
We connected about this and there were three major themes that kept coming up: 1. Poor quality ingredients, 2. Timing is really important with each ingredient and 3. Lack of information.
Knowing we weren’t doctors ourselves, we had the concept validated by one of the top OB/ MFMs in the country. And once we had her “blessing” we also knew we wanted our product to be created and informed by doctors, so we brought on board my amazing OB/GYN, Dr. Bayati, as our medical cofounder to run point on formulation and medical community relations. We also formulated a panel of experts – OBs, MFM specialists (key to high-risk pregnancies), reproductive endocrinologist fertility experts – all of who have years of experience in the space, that review and contribute to the product.
How is it different?
Most vitamins use a one-size-fits-all approach to women’s nutrition which makes Perelel unique. We exclusively use high-quality ingredients in the most bioavailable formats, with formulations informed by the latest medical research, coupled with our medical cofounder’s clinical insights to deliver the essential nutrients a woman needs (no more, no less) for the specific stage of life she is in.
What market are you targeting and how big is it?
Our Perelel community includes women in their mid-twenties to late thirties, ranging from those trying to conceive, pregnant, experiencing loss, postpartum, navigating motherhood or just eager to support their reproductive health. Our products and resources are strategically designed with a clinical foundation of what women need and uniquely meet them at their stage in life. Globally, women’s health represents a market opportunity of over $40B.
What’s your business model?
We operated with a Direct to Consumer (DTC), subscription model.
What was the funding process like?
We were in a unique position when we first launched Perelel as first-time entrepreneurs raising funding and expecting mothers while also navigating a global pandemic.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
While we knew the process wouldn’t be seamless when it came time to raise capital, we were quickly exposed to the backlash of catering to a woman’s reproductive life cycle. We received countless no’s for numerous reasons, and far too many no’s were because the women’s health opportunity was “too niche” or that motherhood was “too short a window.”
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
While our pregnancies certainly served as the impetus to the Perelel brand, it was important to us to be backed by investors who understood the tremendous opportunity of supporting women not just through this crucial life stage surrounding matrescence, but beyond it.
Ultimately, our goal is to support women both internally and externally, and we are extremely fortunate to have investors who also value this. We’re also proud of the fact that our entire board of directors are moms.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
This new round of funding will be used to propel Perelel’s growth within new and existing channels and accelerate the rollout of new products. We’ll also use the funding to ramp up marketing initiatives and expand recruitment efforts for new talent.
What advice can you offer companies in Los Angeles that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
We strongly recommend targeting investors that align with your values and are passionate about your mission.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Our goal is to take out the guesswork when it comes to women’s health and nutrition, and we’re dedicated to being the most trusted source supporting women with targeted solutions for all of their reproductive and hormonal health needs.
Our goal is to take out the guesswork when it comes to women’s health and nutrition, and we’re dedicated to being the most trusted source supporting women with targeted solutions for all of their reproductive and hormonal health needs.
Our brand is built on trust. If we can be the go-to vitamin to support a woman through her most nutritionally demanding and sensitive chapter, we can leverage that deep relationship to support her throughout her other key hormonal life stages.
What is your favorite restaurant in LA?
Olivetta in West Hollywood and Cholada Thai in Malibu for Alex.
The Draycott in the Palisades and everything at the Brentwood Country Mart for Tori.
