Jaclyn Fu started Denver-based bra company Pepper in 2017 because of a personal pain point and hole in the market.
While there had been a big push around body positivity, she said women with small cup sizes were left out of the movement.
Much of the bra industry was designing to a specific size, then sizing up or down to meet the needs of the general public. That certainly works for some, but Fu knew there were many women like her that weren’t satisfied.
So, she set out to design a bra specifically for women with smaller cup sizes. Fu didn’t have a background in bra design or even the clothing industry, having worked at technology companies like Conversocial, Etsy and Mozilla.
While at Conversocial she began bouncing ideas off of her co-worker Lia Winograd, whose family owned a button factory in Colombia. After finding a manufacturer that would produce Pepper’s bras in Medellin, the duo took their shot.
Pepper introduced its first product, the All You Bra, on Kickstarter in April 2017 and achieved 470 percent funding in just 13 days.
“When we first started Pepper, we knew there were a lot of women that had these pain points,” Fu said. “But we didn’t know the extent of how many women out there were compromising. Now we know that women want more.”
With a loyal customer base and growing brand, Pepper has closed a $2 million seed round to expand its product collection with more designs that are specially designed to fit and flatter small chests.
To date, Pepper has raised $2.4 million in total funding, including investments from Precursor Ventures, Break Trail Ventures, Kokopelli Capital, New York University Innovation Fund, Denver Angels, various family offices, and several participating individual investors such as Moiz Ali, the founder of Native Deodoran, Peter Cobb, the co-founder of eBags.com, and MyFitnessPal co-founder Albert Lee.
The funding comes as Pepper landed its first major retail partnership with Urban Outfitters.
Fu said the three-person company will use the funding to expand its product collection, looking at other areas of apparel where Pepper can offer better-fitting products, like bathing suits.
“We’re discovering other product categories that we can tap into to own the customer closet,” she said.
Pepper’s bras are priced from $48 to $54, available in band sizes 30-38, in cup sizes AA, A and B and can be found online at www.wearpepper.com.
