The Honest Company raises $25M to fuel expansion

Jessica Alba's subscription service offers eco-friendly baby and family products

The Honest Company, a subscription service for eco-friendly baby and family products, has raised a new $25 million funding round, it was announced on Monday.

The round was led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), and joined by ICONIQ Capital, with participation from existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and General Catalyst Partners. 

The company previously raised $27 million in Series A financing, led by General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) in March of last year. This latest round brings the company's total funding to $52 million to date. 

The new money will be used to help the company expand internationally. Right now, it is only available in the United States and Canada, where it only recently launched.

"The overwhelmingly positive response to both our recent launch in Canada and the availability of Honest products from our retail partners is a testament to the vast unmet global need for safe everyday family products,” The Honest Company CEO and Co-Founder Brian Lee said in a statement.

"This new round of funding will provide essential resources for us to continuously expand our suite of products and bring them to households around the world."

In addition, the company also says it will use the funding to continue to develop the product, ehance its distribution capabilities and give its customers better accessibility.

Launched in 2012, The Honest Company is a subscription site for safe, non-toxic products for babies and families.

Co-founded by actress Jessica Alba, the Santa Monica-based start up offers monthly subscriptions of baby and family products, such as diapers, wipes and bath / skin care, all of which delivered to members' front doors.

The Honest Company also formulates and manufactures household cleaning products, such as laundry detergent, surface cleaners and dish soap.

A membership to the company’s Diapers & Wipes Bundle costs $79.95 per Bundle. It includes one monthly shipment of six jumbo bags of Honest Diapers, and four packages of Honest Wipes. 

The Essentials Bundle costs $35.95 per Bundle. It allows users to pick five cleaning items to ship every month, including shampoo/body wash, hand soap, bug spray and laundry detergent. 

The Health & Wellness Bundle also costs $39.95 per Bundle. Users pay for two vitamin/supplement items, such as prenatal multivitamins, baby and toddler multivitamins or DHA/Omega 3.

Users are not charged per month, but only for the Bundles that are shipped to them. They also pay shipping and handling prices.

A percentage of company sales are donated to Baby2Baby.org.

The subscription commerce space 

The Honest Company is one of many subscription commerce companies to have popped up in the last few years. There are startups for virtually anything you can imagine.

That includes retail companies, such as ShoeDazzle, which raised $66 million before being bought by JustFab. There are also companies that sell clothes, craft kits, educational kid’s toys, makeup andsnacks.

And then there are the things that people are embarrassed about going to buy at the store, such as tampons, condoms, hair color products and sex toys.

(Image source: https://www.honest.com)