Athena Club, a direct-to-consumer brand that sells grooming, wellness, and period products, has raised a $15 million Series A round of funding, as reported by WWD.

WHO: Athena Club relaunched in 2019 as a DTC brand selling products across categories and with the intent to create a modern digital drugstore with clean sustainable essentials. Customers set up subscriptions and have the option to add more products to their order. The business currently sells a razor kit, personal care, period care, and supplements.

WHY: The funding will be used for customer acquisition, new product launches, improvement of the digital experience, and to expand the team.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS: “We’re building a modern digital drugstore experience,” Maria Markina, Co-Chief Executive and co-founder, told WWD. “Overall, we’re really focused on becoming the first digitally native CPG company.”

The company will expand into other categories, the founders said, and look to disrupt markets that the major CPG players currently dominate. “We really rely on our customers and data to inform our decisions as we move forward, but a lot of these categories have been dominated by legacy companies often launching the same product under a new brand so we really want to tackle anything that's in somebody’s routine,” Markina said.

DETAILS:

• Athena Club closed a $15 million Series A round of funding co-led by Cue Ball Capital, with participation from Shazi Visram, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Happy Nest; Stefanie Jay, Chief Business and Strategy Officer of eBay, and existing seed investors.
• In July 2018 the company received $3.8 million in seed funding from investors that included Henry Kravis of KKR, the Desmarais Group, Cue Ball Capital, Philippe Laffont, Founder of Coatue Management, and Robert Fetherstonhaugh.
• The business has raised a total of $26 million to date.
• Athena Club’s subscriber base grew by more than 2,000 percent in 2020, according to the company.