Wellness Startups 🌱 Spring 2021

In what feels like the first Spring in ages, people are ready to shed sweatpants and return to normalcy feeling good. Today we look at the Wellness industry to see just where consumer trends are heading this season after being dramatically shifted by the pandemic.

Meditation

Usage on meditation apps has spiked over the last year, with mindfulness novices turning to apps like Calm to settle COVID-anxiety. Calm raised its Round C in December of 2020, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with plans to expand via video streaming, music, and partnerships.

The app Insight Timer has created a veritable cottage industry for meditation teachers, sound healers, and yoga teachers, who use the app to reach the app's millions of mindfulness seekers. The private company has revealed that its team has grown from 30 to 130 in the last year and plans to build upon its users' attention, who collectively spent more than 5.6 billion minutes on the app in 2020.

Skincare 

People are peeling off their masks, hoping to reveal beautiful skin, rather than the dreaded "maskne." Beauty Counter has been delivering on clean beauty & skincare since 2012 and was acquired by the Carlyle Group in April, bringing it officially into unicorn status. 

Investors are hoping to get in early with the men’s skincare brand Disco. Midnight Ventures led the $5MM seed round alongside investors familiar with the category, such as Bryan Mahoney, formerly of Glossier. The funding will help this Austin startup expand its product offerings, add to the team, and expand into retail, with deals with Nordstrom and other retailers.

                   

Fitness & nutrition

These companies believe that home-cooking and home fitness are behaviors that are here to stay. 

Bringing rowing to the home, Ergatta, much like Peloton, believes its customers are ready for premium fitness equipment and a sleek experience. Investors are hoping the same; after a seed round last summer, Ergatta raised its Round A in April, bringing in $30MM.

Personalized nutrition recommendations are satisfying a particular hunger from consumers interested in optimizing unique body needs. Startup Zoe has just raised its B round, bringing in $20MM led by Ahren Innovation Capital.