Perelel, The First OB/GYN-Founded Women’s Vitamin Company, Announces A $4.7 Million Seed Round Led By Unilever Ventures To Reimagine Reproductive Health

Perelel, the first and only OB/GYN-founded vitamin company to offer clean, targeted nutrition for each distinct stage of a woman’s reproductive life cycle, today announced the close of its $4.7 million seed round. Launched in 2020 by Alex Taylor, Victoria Thain Gioia, and Dr. Banafsheh Bayati, Perelel is pioneering a new standard for supporting women with vitamins for every stage of their reproductive life cycle.

Perelel’s subscription-based product offerings include a Conception Support Pack, 1st Trimester Prenatal Pack, 2nd Trimester Prenatal Pack, 3rd Trimester Prenatal Pack, Mom Multi Support Pack (for postpartum and early motherhood), Women’s Dai DAI ly Vitamin Trio (for women of all reproductive age), Men’s Multi Support Pack, as well as supplemental products. As a genuinely mission-driven company, Perelel’s offerings extend beyond just a pill subscription in the form of an intimately supportive community and personalized resources at every step of the pre- and post-natal journey. Their subscribers also have access to resources powered by Perelel’s founding doctors and practitioners (known as the Perelel Panel).

Dedicated to creating a world with more healthy and supported women, from the early days Perelel’s team learned about the direct connection between nutrition and pregnancy outcomes and were shocked to learn that 1 in 33 babies born in the U.S. is born with birth defects, many of which are nutrition related. “As moms, it only felt right to make our high-quality products more accessible so we created a 1:1 model where we donate a supply of our own prenatal vitamins to underserved women here in the United States who lack access to high-quality prenatal care. To date, we’ve donated nearly $1 million in products,” shares Victoria Thain Gioia, cofounder of Perelel.

The Innovation Born Out Of Necessity

The story of Perelel goes back to 2018 when Alex and Victoria both found themselves pregnant and frustrated with their prenatal vitamins. They were chatting about the new “motherhood” chapter in their lives that they were both experiencing and realized that most vitamin brands use a one-size-fits-all approach to prenatal nutrition that fails to deliver targeted nutrients for each unique stage.

“Personally, my daughter was born with a cleft lip – though I had no risk factors or genetic link – it really knocked me off my feet because I couldn’t understand why. I started doing a lot of research with my OB and learned that it was likely due to a folic acid deficiency during the first few weeks of my pregnancy, which tipped me off to the importance of targeted, high-quality nutrition,” continues Thain Gioia.

Meanwhile, Alex Taylor was coming to this from a different place – as someone with Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune disorder that affects 5% of women in the U.S. (and because of that) she was especially conscious of her health regimen when she began her fertility and pregnancy journey. She first grew intimately aware of the lack of transparency and education available in the prenatal-vitamin market when she was pregnant with her first child and began customizing a prenatal regimen herself before co-founding Perelel in 2019.

“I learned about the benefits of timing specific supplements to the stage I was in, for example, taking additional antioxidants as I was trying to conceive and increasing amounts of calcium in my third trimester. At the time, I was piecing together my own vitamin routine, sourcing them from various retailers like Amazon AMZN , Target TGT , and so forth. It was a time-consuming, haphazard and expensive approach and went against my personal principles of sustainability (too much plastic!),” Taylor explains.

As both cofounders dug deeper, they realized there were three major themes that kept coming up: 1) poor quality ingredients, 2) the importance of timing with specific ingredients, and 3) a lack of information–it was tough to discern what information was credible or not as it relates to prenatal nutrition. Knowing they weren't doctors themselves, but certainly wanting for their offerings to be developed and informed by doctors, they brought on board Thain Gioia’s OB/GYN, Dr. Banafsheh Bayati, as their medical co-founder to run point on formulation, medical content, and community relations.

“We also brought on a panel of experts - OBs, MFM (maternal-fetal medicine) specialists (key to high-risk pregnancies), reproductive endocrinology fertility experts, dieticians, naturopathic doctors, and pediatricians - all of whom have years of experience in the space, and develop, review and inform every product,” adds Thain Gioia.

Created By Women For Women

Perelel’s community is primarily composed of women in their mid-twenties to late-thirties who are navigating some of the most important stages of their lives. Whether they are trying to conceive, pregnant, experiencing loss, postpartum, navigating the early years of motherhood, or simply considering how best to support their reproductive health, all Perelel’s products and resources are designed with an intimate, medically-rooted understanding of what women need and uniquely meet them at their stage in life.

The company’s recent seed round was led by Unilever Ventures with additional investors including Willow Growth Partners. Other investors include Raissa Gerona, a chief brand officer of Revolve; Courtney Reum, founder of M13; Joan Nyugen, co-founder and CEO of Bumo; Julia Hunter, CEO of Jenni Kayne; and Ali Weiss, CMO of Glossier as well as influencers Whitney Port; Aimee Song; Gaby Dalkin of What's Gaby Cooking; Marissa Hermer, restaurateur and owner of the Draycott, Olivetta, and Issima; and model Rocky Barnes.

“Women’s health and research is a significantly underserved area that has tremendous potential for expansion and Perelel is pioneering a way to reimagine women’s health with targeted nutrition,” Rachel Harris, Partner at Unilever Ventures, shares with me.

While their pregnancies certainly served as the impetus to the Perelel brand, it was important to them 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.

“When we launched the business, we were both in a unique position of not only being first-time entrepreneurs but also expecting mothers in the early days of the pandemic. While we knew the process wouldn’t be easy 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”,” explains Thain Gioia.

For both cofounders, it’s imperative for their brand to be built on trust.

“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 health needs. We are extremely fortunate to have investors who also value this. We’re also incredibly proud of the fact that our entire board of directors is moms,” concludes Taylor.