This women’s health company has been acquired.
Launched in 2017 by Erica Chidi, LOOM has been a helpful sexual and reproductive resource for women, launching first at a physical location in Los Angles, CA, before scaling to a mobile application, its website mentions. TechCrunch reports its offerings included courses, content, and community for women.
Chidi’s vision had been emboldened with a $3 million raise a few years later, joining the few Black women to do so.
“I was like the 34th Black woman to raise over a million dollars in venture capital,” Chidi recalled to TechCrunch, adding that she didn’t expect she would raise the nearly $3 million in three months back in late 2019. “At the moment, there was just a new interest in women’s health.”
In total, Chidi has secured $6.5 million in funding since its inception with support from Slow Ventures and Founders Fund, along with celebrity interest that included Tessa Thompson and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Now, LOOM is turning a new leaf. It has been acquired by Perelel, led by Alex Taylor, Dr. Banafsheh Bayati, and Victoria Thain Gioia. Per the Perelel website, it provides female customers with a vitamin routine that is informed by its team of multidisciplinary doctors and practitioners focused in women’s health. TechCrunch stated it has sold 48 million capsules since its inception, and the company has grown by over 120% year-over-year, while raising $6 million in a Series A round in 2024 led by Unilever.
The company’s progress placed it in satisfactory standing to Chidi.
“Once we launched our app in the App Store last October, I knew I wanted to move forward and ideally find a company that had a higher clinical acuity — or a higher consumer acuity — and could use what we built to better support women in a more 360 way,” Chidi explained, per TechCrunch.
Moving forward, Perelel’s goal is to build on the “broader mission of supporting women and supporting women’s health.” Chidi will now join Perelel, serving as a strategic advisor.
“This type of intentional education and health information and content isn’t really bucketed together in any other brand within the category,” Gioia said. “It’s exciting to be creating something very different, but from two very strong existing brands.”
