Women’s wellness brand her1 has announced the closing of €5.5M Series A let by Five Seasons Ventures. The DTC company sells plant-based products that support female gut health. The investment will be used to further grow in the European market and for new product development. Other participants in the round were previous seed investors Rheingau Founders and IBB Ventures. her1 was founded in 2017 by FoodTech Entrepreneur Chanyu Xu and has raised €9M in funding to date.
The company launched its flagship product, Inner Beauty, in 2019 after over a year of research and development. The product contains over 25 billion active, natural and good microorganisms per daily serving, to support a healthy microbiome.
her1 develops all its own products, using natural, plant-based, gluten and sugar-free blends made from locally sourced whole foods and containing prebiotics and probiotics to feed the gut microbiome. In addition to powders and supplements, her1 accompanies customers throughcare packages, helping new healthy habits to be created, and provides accessories. Most recently the company launched Gut One a daily supplement to help the gut-brain-axis with probiotics and essential b-vitamins for optimal brain and cognitive functioning, which is also available on subscription.
Chanyu Xu, her1 Founder & CEO of her1, commented, “My mantra for her1 is that you are what you eat and everything starts from within. her1 was created to accompany women through different life stages with essentially everything they need, focussing on the connection our general health and wellbeing has with what’s happening in our guts. From mood and sleep, to cognitive performance and sexual wellbeing, everything is connected. With this investment and the support of Five Seasons Ventures, we’ll be introducing more products to an even wider market as we look to expand to help more women across Europe.”
Saskia Hoebée, Senior Associate at Five Seasons Ventures, added, “her1 is our first portfolio company where the founder, the majority of the management team and a large part of the company is all female – a true for women, by women approach! At Five Seasons Ventures, we were already convinced that there was a big opportunity for gut health as a large addressable market, but until we spoke with Chanyu we didn’t realise that almost twice as many women suffer from digestive health issues on a weekly basis, compared to men. We believe in her1’s vision to provide a convenient, effective and elegant remedy for an underserved market and help more women to go with their gut, focussing on health and wellness from within.”
her1’s team of 35 is based in Berlin, Germany. The company will be hiring across its finance, marketing, and product teams as part of this investment round. her1 already has customers across Europe but has to date operated in German speaking countries. Starting with English, the company will make its website and products available in more European languages to cater to its growing market.
