Dame is the sexual wellness company on a mission to close the pleasure gap by creating products for ... [+]
Dame, the sexual wellness company on a mission to close the pleasure gap by creating products for pleasure, today announces a $7 million Series A funding round led by Amboy Street Ventures, with participation from Listen Ventures, Flybridge, Echo, and Forest Road Company bringing Dame’s total capital raised to $13 million. With this funding, the company is also announcing a Dame-quality vibe at a more accessible price point – Dip, an unintimidating, inclusive entry point to pleasure for people who are in the early stages of their sexual wellness journey.
This announcement comes on the heels of Dame’s momentum in the cultural zeitgeist over the past year, which has been driven by initiatives like launching several new products, settling with the NYC MTA to run ads on the subway, helping launch Sephora's Intimate Care category, and introducing a Clinical Board to further push the narrative that sexual health is a key factor to overall wellness and provide credibility in the space, to name a few.
The funding will be used to fuel the company’s focus on maintaining a loyal customer base and exploring new categories for a broader audience with more accessible and replenishable products, and to continue evolving its retail presence. Currently, Dame is carried by Sephora, Bloomingdales, Nordstrom, and Free People, amongst others. Dame has doubled its wholesale business each year for the past two years, with 20% of consumers hearing about the brand through its retail partners.
Alexandra Fine, cofounder and CEO of Dame
"Dame started in 2014 at my kitchen table with some silver dollar coins and plastic wrap. I had an idea for a vibrator that could be worn during intercourse, which in turn could help to close the pleasure gap - the disparity in the satisfaction that people with vulvas experience in the bedroom, versus their cis male counterparts. I joined forces with an MIT-trained engineer, and together, we turned my experiment into a real-life product, Eva: the first truly wearable couples’ vibrator," starts her story Alexandra Fine, founder and CEO of Dame.
Dame then made history when Eva raised over half a million dollars on Indiegogo, and this success led to the creation of Fin, a wearable vibrator made for fingers—which became the first sex toy ever allowed to launch on Kickstarter. Within one year, they sold more than 10,000 vibrators, amounting to over $1 million in revenue.
“Dame is bringing the sexual wellness category into the mainstream by plowing through industry-wide hurdles,” shares Carli Sapir, Founding Partner of Amboy Street Ventures. “Sexual pleasure and wellbeing is arguably the most stigmatized subset of our space – and when that stigma is removed from sexual health and women’s health; research, funding, and solutions will pour into this underserved area. Dame is unapologetically dismantling shame around sexual wellness and, in doing so, has found incredible product market fit.”
Dame’s Series A funding round showcases the appetite and potential in the sexual wellness market, which is expected to reach $125.1 billion by 2026. Under the leadership of CEO Alexandra Fine, Dame has secured this round when venture financing has fallen significantly across the board – especially for female founders.
Dame was one of the first brands to really champion the pleasure of people with vulvas
“The sexual wellness market is growing by the day, which is amazing to see given the resistance we’ve seen in past years,” adds Fine. “We are so proud to be a part of an encouraging intimacy movement, and our hope is that our newest product, Dip, will open that door for even more people to get in touch with themselves.”
Additionally, Dame Labs (the company's research arm focused on obtaining real feedback for Dame Products’ innovations) boasts over 10,000 members of all genders. They play a crucial role in providing Dame's team with product feedback from real people from all walks of life.
With this injection of capital and product expansion, Dame continues its work to normalize and champion pleasure as a part of overall wellness. With steady online 100% year-over-year e-commerce growth, Dame is looking to expand to provide more touchpoints, from investing in educational content with its Clinical Board to furthering its retail presence and prioritizing customer retention to create a lasting community.
"Retail is a huge channel of investment for us, and we’ve seen growth this year and are excited to see more. We’ve been able to double our wholesale business each year for the past two years, so we want to focus on growing that part of the business as well," concludes Fine.
