Singapore-based wellness startup Moom Health recently announced a S$1.2 million (US$855,000) seed funding round led by DSG Consumer Partners with the participation of women-focused business incubator Nuguru and fashion e-commerce platform Love, Bonito.

In a press statement, the company stated that it plans to invest in product development and supply chain transparency, increase its retail presence, grow its team, and expand internationally. It had bootstrapped its business for over a year since its launch in June 2021.

“Our vision is to really bring wellness into the everyday lives of the modern Asian woman, so expanding internationally is extremely important for us to be able to do that,” Moom co-founder Mili Kale writes to e27 in an email.

“We have just started shipping to Malaysia and are looking to further contextualise Moom to the Malaysian market and increase our local presence. We are a community-driven brand … and want a strong community presence in each market we go to. We plan on focussing heavily on Malaysia over the next several months, as well as, eventually, the rest of the region!”

Founded by sisters Mili and Maya Kale, Moom was inspired by the co-founders’ struggle with women’s health issues such as PCOS and hormonal acne, and their dissatisfaction with the existing solutions.

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Its product offerings included a personalised supplement range curated via an expert-backed quiz, set of packs curated for specific women’s health concerns such as hair health and sleep support and a line of products that provide targeted relief in under 60 minutes such as bloating and digestive relief.

The company works with a panel of women’s health specialists in the fields of naturopathy, nutrition, dermatology, gynaecology, sexual health, and traditional medicine, as well as an R&D team on product formulations and curation, quiz recommendation logic, and educational content.

But in its product development process, Moom puts emphasis on the role of its community.

“Our product development begins with our community. We are a brand created by Asian women, for Asian women, and rely heavily on not only our experts but also our community. First and foremost we look to our community to understand what they need and what they want in a product. We then work closely with our expert board to formulate products that work to fill the gaps our community has pointed out, as well as our manufacturer and R&D team to source the highest quality ingredients that ‘fit the bill’,” says Mili Kale.

“Our experts are practitioners from various different fields that relate to women’s health – so we only realise products that every single one of them agrees on, which you can imagine takes time! After that, everything undergoes months of consumer testing (led by Moom and our experts), and finally, the formulation is third-party tested by one of the largest labs in the world, Eurofins.”

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Bringing it back to the community

When asked about the role of its community in its customer acquisition strategy, Kale stresses the importance for Moom to put itself in the mindset of its customers.

“Traditionally, supplements are sold at pharmacies and health stores, with little to no education on ingredients, formulations, supply chain, or the actual human beings behind the brand. Consumers aren’t responding to the traditional marketing strategies or retail experiences that have always existed, and ‘demand’ a more informed, educated, and contextualised experience- especially in an industry as confusing as supplements!” she explained.

“We pride ourselves on being extremely transparent with our community … as well as sharing women’s stories and experiences on the plethora of health issues we face. We want to start a conversation around the ‘guesswork’ we have to do, and when we share our content, it’s so that Asian women can look at others and think ‘I’ve been through that too, maybe this will work for me!’”

But this was not without its own unique challenge.

“I think it’s really the tough thing about this space in general – Asian women are not used to sharing our stories and the work we do behind the scenes to even start to understand our bodies. At Moom, we’ve found that we really have to break things down for our audience, because how else can we expect our consumers to trust our brand? Our community has pushed us to think harder and smarter about what we do, what we say, and more importantly how we say it so that it’s easy to understand what we’re really here for,” she continues.

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In addition to this specific challenge, the women’s wellness segment is a competitive space in general. So how does Moom plan to stand out from the rest?

“Creating for the modern Asian woman is what drives us and is our priority. Additionally, our focus on transparency, quality, and community are what truly sets us apart. Our product pipeline is conceptualised by our community and formulated entirely by a world-class team of experts spanning naturopathy, sexual health, gynecology, dermatology, and nutrition, all specialising in women’s health. We are here to disrupt the traditional supplement aisle in Asia,” Kale closed.

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Image Credit: Moom

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