Paris-based startup 900.care has raised $22.7 million in Series A funding.
The startup, which provides refillable personal care products in a bid to cut plastic waste and CO2 emissions, secured the capital from Lombard Odier Investment Managers, White Star Capital, and Swen Blue Ocean.
“We want refills to become the new norm for the market,” said cofounder and CEO Aymeric Grange. Currently, many personal-use products in supermarkets, such as body wash, conditioners, and other hygiene products, use a lot of single-use plastics.
“It creates so much plastic waste, and shipping water for these products also creates a lot of CO2 emissions,” Grange told Business Insider. To tackle the mounting waste generated by the beauty care industry, Grange decided to “reinvent this model for the customer.”
Usually, personal-care products are composed of around 90% water and just 10% base ingredients.
The startup offers refillable products (such as shampoos, body wash, and deodorants) in a reusable plastic container, with small compressed sticks of active ingredients that can be dissolved in water at home. This reduces water waste, which would otherwise be required to manufacture and transport these products.
As a direct-to-consumer (D2C) startup, 900.care sells subscription packages to its customers and relies on repeat orders to make up its revenue.
“We are in a market where e-commerce penetration is very low,” Grange told BI, adding that it gave the startup three key advantages when cutting costs and generating revenue.
“We have lower costs because we don’t sell single-use bottles; we have lower shipping costs because the products weigh less and are delivered by the mailman,” he said. “And because we are multi-category, we have been able to grow our average order size.”
Amid a tougher funding environment for D2C startups in the past two years, Grange told BI that 900.care’s “growth economics and product-market fit” helped them to secure funding. At the end of 2023, the startup had reached over $10 million in revenue.
New investor Lombard Odier Investment Managers led the Series A, alongside existing investors White Star Capital, Swen Blue Ocean, and Founders Future.
With the fresh funding, the startup will expand out of its home country France, and continue to set up shop in seven countries — including the UK. It will also focus on reaching profitability.
Check out the 16-slide pitch deck used to secure the fresh funding.
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