Please welcome Cake, a modern brand for sexual wellness
Meet Cake, the latest addition to Lerer Hippeau’s portfolio.
HQ: Los Angeles
Founders: Mitchell Orkis, Hunter Morris
The problem: While modern brands have emerged across consumer health and wellness categories, from diet and exercise to meditation and mental health, developments in sexual wellness have remained taboo, and underfunded. Today, the $108 billion market for sexual wellness products is served predominantly by incumbent brands in the “family planning aisle.” The outdated products and messaging of corporate incumbents contributes to an awkward, uncomfortable, and often shameful shopping experience for American consumers buying sex and personal care products.
Cake’s solution: Cake is building a digitally native, mass market brand to normalize sexual health as part of a larger wellness routine. Through its omnichannel line of lubricants, condoms, and toys — with specific products tailored to meet the differing needs of individuals, straight couples, and LGBTQ+ couples — Cake’s mission is to make sex more fun. Unlike incumbent brands, Cake accurately reflects the preferences of modern consumers. Its products center around inclusive and diverse representation, are created without sulfates, dyes, alcohol, or parabens to put the customer’s health first, and are available at an accessible price point.
Origin story: Hunter Morris, the former COO of Watch Gang, launched a line of sexual hygiene wipes to test his initial hypothesis in 2018. He found an open minded and underserved market, and teamed up with Mitchell Orkis, the former chief strategy officer at creative agency Frank Collective, to further explore it in 2019. Cake launched its initial line of direct to consumer products in June 2020, and has since grown rapidly, with TikTok promotion accounting for 20% of month-over-month growth.
Why we’re betting on it: In a survey of Cake customers, 84% said Cake made their sex lives better. Cake’s unique mass market approach to sexual wellness has been validated by retailers as well as consumers. In July of 2021, Cake will launch in 4,000 Walmart store locations across the U.S., reinventing the sex aisle as a more accessible, informative, and inclusive experience for modern consumers.
Our take: There is a massive trend toward general health and wellness by modern brands. And, as a new generation of Gen Z consumers demands products that resonate with them in terms of diversity, inclusion, and representation, digitally native brands like Parade, Lola, and Lover have successfully displaced outdated incumbents. The Cake team insightfully identified an opportunity to bring sexual wellness to a mass market audience, while deeply resonating with a generation of consumers that is more open minded than ever before.
Further reading: “Sexual Wellness Brand Cake Puts Cherry On Top Of National Retail Launch With $4M Seed” via Crunchbase News
Learn more about careers at Cake.
