Scentbird, the subscription-based service for perfumes and colognes, has added another $2.8 million in venture funding to its $1 million seed round as it launches a new service that expands beyond the subscription model.
The Y Combinator alum, headed by Mariya Nurislamova, picked up a gaggle of new investors willing to throw more seed-round funding at the soaring scent company.
The new service from Scentbird allows folks to buy individual 8ml cartridges of perfume and cologne without a subscription and with immediate shipping. It’s an alternative to adding a scent to a subscriber’s monthly queue.
The New York-based company has a $6 million run rate and has managed to ship more than 300,000 samples since its launch at the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator in 2014, with the goal of giving men and women a new way to discover fragrances they may love.
The company’s business model offers customers access to a 30-day supply of more than 450 fragrances delivered right to their door for just $14.95 per month. The company also encourages its customers to create a scent profile and add content like reviews to the website.
That approach has attracted the attention of notable angel investors like Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, Michael Seibel of SocialCam, Tikhon Bernstam of Parse and Casper’s Philip Krim, and funds including Eclipse Ventures, Vaizra Investments, FundersClub, Scrum Ventures, SGH Capital and Ludlow Ventures.
Latching onto the moniker as “the Netflix for perfume,” Scentbird, like its rival Scent Trunk, is hoping to grab a piece of the roughly $40.1 billion global market for fragrances.
While both companies are trying to push into the perfume and cologne market, they differ in their approach. Nurislamova’s Scentbird hews to brand names, while Scent Trunk is more artisanal, relying on a network of independent fragrance makers.
The new seed investment will be used to continue the rapid pace of growth and work on building out more product offerings from the platform.
In addition to the subscription services, Scentbird has begun selling gift boxes of assorted smells to match different personality types that have been selected by the company’s tastemakers and curators. And, there’s now a full-size fragrance purchasing option, so customers can buy their favorite smells with a $15 discount — when they buy through Scentbird’s site.
Ohanian was an early supporter of the company when it launched its first offering for men upon its graduation from Y Combinator. The Reddit founder posted about the male version of the service on Product Hunt, calling it the “Dollar Shave Club for cologne.”
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