Falls Church, Va.-based Apothekary, a health and wellness startup, has raised $8 million in a pre-Series A round from New York-based Shiseido Long Term Investments for the Future (LIFT) Ventures, the investing arm of the Japanese cosmetics giant, and other investors. Part of this round – about $5 million — was raised earlier this year. Apothekary also secured a $6 million debt facility from New Hampshire’s Walden Mutual.
Apothekary’s backers include Strand Equity, Trousdale Ventures, Venrex, [solidcore] founder Anne Mahlum, Bonobos founder Andy Dunn, and MuteSix founder Steve Weiss.
‘Back to Nature’
Founder Shizu Okusa says she “became inspired to live a more balanced lifestyle and revisit her Japanese roots and passion for herbal medicine,” after two “intense” years on Wall Street as a Goldman Sachs executive.
“I was walking through CVS and Walgreens and was like, ‘This is not how I was raised,’” she told Glamour. “To pop a pill for every single thing that I felt like was causing me issues. I go back to my Asian roots. We go toward as much as natural as possible.” Okusa previously founded the juice brand Jrink, which she sold in 2019 to Puree Juice Bar.
Apothekary began with a line of herbal remedies, such as wellness powders, tinctures and teas, but aims to address the full range of wellness products in a market worth $480 billion in the United States alone, according to a McKinsey report.
Debuting on Ulta
Earlier this year, Okusa told Inc. magazine her startup, founded in 2018, was profitable and has “grown more than 50 percent year over year.” This year, Apothekary expects to grow by 40% and touch $30 million in revenue.
The Series A’s closing came close on the heels of Apothekary’s debut on Ulta Beauty, the rising cosmetics retailer. Apothekary has brought to Ulta its first range of non-alcoholic tinctures. The startup’s products already distributed at Sprouts Farmers Market.
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“Apothékary’s plant-based tinctures are a unique addition to [Ulta’s] The Wellness Shop, especially as more of us are looking for natural ways to support balance and beauty from within,” said Lisa Tamburello, Ulta’s vice president for merchandising.
Aggressive Approach
Okusa has taken a more aggressive approach at Apothekary than she did at Jrink, saying a startup such as hers needs to go beyond 50% margins. She has placed a premium on branding, hiring a creative agency to “distill complex science and history into appealing graphics, design, and packaging,” as she said in an interview to Shopify.com.
“We couldn’t keep focusing on this niche little market of woo-woo witchy kind of herbal lovers,” Okusa said. “We needed to think bigger, we needed to think broader.” Okusa has also prioritized continuous development, “investing a lot more in clinical studies, a lot more in R&D [research and development], and the product formats.”
