Rael, a feminine care wellness startup dedicated to educating and empowering women with healthy period products, acquired $17.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Mirae Asset and GS Retail Fund, South Korea’s largest asset manager and retail conglomerate. Returning investors include SoftBank Ventures Korea, who previously led Rael’s Pre-Series A round, and BAM Ventures, run by The Honest Company co-founder Brian Lee. New investors Pritzker Group Venture Capital and NYX Cosmetics founder Toni Ko also participated, bringing the total funding to date at $20.4 million.
Launched in 2017, Rael is led by three female co-founders: Aness An, a journalist and bestselling author; Binna Won, an architect-turned-art-director; and Yanghee Paik, a former movie distributor at The Walt Disney Studios with a Harvard MBA. Frustrated by the lack of healthy, comfortable and high-performing period care products on the market, the trio set out to create their own solution.