Personal care brand Rael has raised $35 million in a Series B round, which the company said represents the largest amount raised in the U.S. feminine care category to date.
The funding brings Rael's total funding to $59 million since the company was founded in 2017.
The round was led by Colopl Next, the venture capital arm of Colopl, and Signite Partners, the corporate venture capital firm of Shinsegae Group, which is one of the largest conglomerates in South Korea. Also joining the funding were Aarden Partners, ST Capital, and existing investors including Mirae Asset and Unilever Ventures.
Rael, which was founded in 2017 by three Korean American women in Los Angeles, said it also is expanding its executive leadership team, naming Lauren Consiglio as its president. Consiglio, who has more than 20 years of experience in the consumer products industry, was formerly a senior marketing executive at Unilever and L’Oreal.
In other L.A.-area tech news:
- Anduril, an Orange County hardware and software company that uses AI, robotics and other advanced technologies to build defense systems, is seeking to raise up to $1.2 billion at a $7 billion pre-money valuation, according to TechCrunch. One of Anduril’s previous investors, 8VC, will again invest in the Series E, the report said. Anduril last raised $450 million in a Series D in June 2021 led by Elad Gil. Its other investors include D1 Capital Partners, Valor Equity Partners, Lux Capital, General Catalyst and Founders Fund.
- Santa Monica software maker BuildOps has raised $43 million in Series A funding led by Siemens’ Next47. Also participating were Founders Fund, StepStone Group, Fika Ventures, Global Founders Capital, MetaProp VC, 1984 Ventures, L2 Ventures, NBA all-star Metta World Peace, Boost Mobile CEO Stephen Stokols and others. BuildOps’ platform integrates scheduling, dispatching, inventory management, contracts, workflow and accounting into a single software suite for commercial contractors with staff ranging from a dozen to thousands of employees.
- Sensible Weather, a Los Angeles-based climate-risk technology company, has raised $12 million in Series A funding, bringing its total financing to more than $20 million. The round was led by San Francisco-based Infinity Ventures with participation from Certares Ventures, existing investors Wonder Ventures and Group1001, and executives from hospitality and fintech pioneers Airbnb, Pacaso, Plaid and Toast. Sensible said the new capital will allow it to grow its engineering and scientific staff, accelerate development of its climate data and risk analytics platform, and expand its Weather Guarantee offering into international markets.
- Fyxt, an L.A. cloud-based operations platform for commercial real estate, has completed a Series A financing round, raising $4 million. The round was led by RET Ventures and included participation from U.K.-based family office Reuben Brothers. Founded in in 2017, Fyxt makes software for the management of “essential assets” across logistics/industrial, healthcare, retail and other historically net-lease environments. Early investors in Fyxt included KRV Capital, Inertia Ventures and Blackship Advisors.
