Victoria Thain Gioia launched Perelel five years ago as a supplement business selling vitamins tailored to each stage of the fertility cycle, from trying to conceive, to specific trimesters, to postpartum. Since then, the startup has expanded to other categories of the women’s wellness craze, from greens powders to protein.
To enter its next phase of growth, Fortune is the first to report, Perelel just raised $27 million from Prelude Growth Partners. Thain Gioia, the brand’s CEO, and her cofounders Alex Taylor and Dr. Banafsheh Bayati weren’t out looking for capital, but were approached by Prelude—and took the opportunity to bring on a strategic partner and deliver a return to early angel investors. While Perelel declined to confirm exactly who got bought out, early angel investors in the brand included the fashion influencer Aimee Song, former The Hills star Whitney Port, and former execs from Revolve and Glossier. The company declined to share revenue and has 35 employees.
Prelude was founded by Neda Daneshzadeh and Alicia Sontag, who came from the consumer world via L Catterton and Johnson & Johnson Beauty. Their portfolio includes several buzzy beauty brands, like Summer Fridays, Tower 28, and Westman Atelier.
