TA Ventures participated in a $2.75M seed funding round raised by the US company Coterie. The round was led by Willow Growth, an early-stage female-founded fund. The startup was also supported by RiverPark Ventures and New York-based M3 Ventures.

What is Coterie?

Launched in 2019, a sustainable diapers company with its headquarters in New York, Coterie, was aimed to simplify parents’ baby care with a better diaper. The company guarantees leakage protection due to 2 times more absorbency than leading brands, including Pampers and Huggies. Coterie says that it produces the driest diapers in North America that moreover effectively helps reduce skin irritation. Compared to the industry average of 30 seconds moisture-wicking, with Coterie diapers, it takes 16 seconds.

“Parents today expect high-quality, high-performing products in every area of their lives; why should diapers be any different? There was a clear opportunity to deliver something so much better. Designing the best diaper, was just the start for Coterie. We will continue to look for ways to innovate and deliver better products and services that make parent’s lives easier,” says Frank Yu, founder and CEO of Coterie.

TA Ventures investment rational

TA Ventures first contacted Coterie early in 2020, the startup was founded by TA Ventures partner Oleg Malenkov.

“P&G and Kimberly Clark hold more than 85% of the market in the US by clearly winning the mass market segment, what Coterie does is a combination of a 10x better product made of organic materials and a direct-to-consumer approach fueled by super high retention rates. Owning a tiny % of a market share will result in hundreds of millions in revenues. It’s a tremendous opportunity that we want to tackle, and are already successfully tackling by selling more than 1m diapers per month,” commented Malenkov.

The company’s growth is not fully set up yet with launching a diaper-as-a-service subscription coupled with concierge and community features.