NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Care/of, the personalized vitamin and supplement company built on honest guidance and top-tier ingredients, today announced the completion of a $12 million Series A financing round. The company, which launched in November 2016, has now raised over $15 million in total funding. Goodwater Capital led the round with participation from Tusk Ventures, RRE Ventures, the co-founders of InVision, and the lead seed investor Juxtapose.
“The vitamin and supplement industry is ripe for reinvention around a great, personalized customer experience. By bringing the experience directly to the consumer and building their brand on honesty and customization, Care/of has emerged as a market leader in an incredibly short period of time,” said Chi-Hua Chien, Managing Partner of Goodwater Capital who will be joining the company’s board of directors. “We are excited to be a part of their vision of customized health and wellness.”
Based on the simple but fundamental belief that each person’s health journeys are unique, Care/of’s innovative platform recommends a specific mix of vitamins and supplements tailored to each user’s individual health goals, lifestyle and values. To build each pack, Care/of users answer a simple set of questions about their lifestyle, diet, routines, health history and future goals, and the company delivers a monthly box of specifically tailored packs directly to customers’ doors. By leveraging scientific research and data, Care/of is able to make recommendations on a personal level – and most people who go through the survey receive a combination of supplements that is totally unique to them.
This new round of funding enables Care/of to invest in its world-class personalized fulfillment system, build top-tier data science capabilities and continue to grow its team. The company also plans to develop new products, including programs tailored towards specific health goals, and launch a mobile app to further the consumer experience and meet the demands of the company’s rapidly growing customer base.
Care/of is one of the fastest-growing companies in the direct-to-consumer health and wellness space. Revenues for the business have doubled every two months since launch – much of the growth driven by the immense organic interest from consumer health journalists, experts, and influencers. Care/of’s latest round of financing comes at a time when sales continue to plummet for traditional brick and mortar retailers in the supplement space, and the business is well positioned to shake up the $39 billion vitamin industry. To date, over 200,000 users have consulted Care/of for guidance within the category, and tens of thousands are active subscribers, a majority acquired through word-of-mouth, press and social media channels like Instagram.
“The ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to health is outdated and oversimplified. From the start we’ve been committed to reshaping the health and wellness space by creating cutting-edge, interactive customer experiences built on both transparency and personalization,” said Craig Elbert, CEO and Co-founder of Care/of. “Our tremendous growth in such a short period of time is a testament to the fact that consumer behavior is changing and the vitamin shopping experience was indeed broken.”
Care/of is well positioned for future growth. In the eight months since launch, the company has grown to 60 employees, including a fully proprietary fulfillment center designed to deliver on the vision of true personalization. In addition, the company has built a scientific advisory board of leading doctors and nutritionists from Harvard and Tufts, pioneered a new pre-natal program, opened a retail location at Saks Fifth Avenue, and developed partnerships with leading brands (including Casper, Outdoor Voices, Away, and more.) The company counts Beth Kaplan, former President of GNC, and Jeff Barrett, former CTO of Stitchfix, as advisors and has also taken investment from the founders of Casper.
About Care/of
Care/of was founded in 2015 by Craig Elbert, formerly an executive at Bonobos, and Akash Shah, an entrepreneur in the healthcare space. Based in New York City, Care/of brings refreshing honesty and true personalization to purchasing vitamins and supplements. The company delivers personalized daily supplement packs straight to your door monthly. Learn more about Care/of and its innovative solutions at www.takecareof.com or on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @Careofvitamins.
