Exclusive: ‘Big Bang Theory’ star Kaley Cuoco raises $3 million to build ‘the Honest Company for pets’
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- Dogged ambition. Kaley Cuoco is known for starring on The Big Bang Theory and The Flight Attendant—and for her love of animals as a dog owner and equestrian. So as the actor considered opportunities for her own brand, she knew right away which category she wanted to be in: pet care.
Cuoco's new pet care brand Oh Norman! launches today, five months after it was first announced. The brand raised $3 million in funding from investors including Midnight Venture Partners, Everywhere Ventures, and Freedom Trail Capital, Fortune is the first to report. It's led by Cuoco's cofounder and CEO Katie Hunt, a former chief brand officer for the dating app Hinge and an early Warby Parker employee.
Oh Norman! is named for Cuoco's late dog Norman; her production company also carries the animal's name. For now, the startup sells only products for dogs, although Hunt and Cuoco say they want to expand to products for other animals. The first products include dog bowls and placemats, as well as two $35 liquid supplements to stop itching and support calm behavior in dogs. The company plans to donate a portion of sales to animal rescue organizations.
Cuoco's ultimate goal, she told me over Zoom yesterday, is to build "the Honest Company for pets," a safe-ingredient-focused pet brand inspired by Jessica Alba's baby care line.
The comparison has some potential. The baby care and nutrition industries were transformed as ingredient-conscious millennials became parents, and millennials are also known for caring for their pets like children. Today, however, pet ownership rates have stabilized after the pandemic's surge, and pet owners have been hit hard by inflation.
Oh Norman! is Cuoco's first brand of her own and represents the first time she was involved in the fundraising process. "This is a whole new thing for me," she says. "I was like, 'Is this what Shark Tank feels like?'"
She leaves running the business to Hunt, but she's a hands-on founder in other ways. Cuoco ate the brand's melatonin-and-chamomile calming supplement called "Calm the eff down!" before she gave it to her dog. (She now has four rescue dogs on her ranch in southern California.) "I was fine," she says. "In fact, I was very relaxed."
The pet care industry is on track to become a $500 billion market globally by 2030 and reach $200 billion in the U.S. by that time, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
"When you pair that growth in the pet space with such an authentic voice with such a large following"—Cuoco has 7.9 million Instagram followers—“It's hard to dispute there's going to be traction,” Hunt says. Combine those forces with the "millennial female shopper who is looking for products that don't exist on the market and is actively already involved with Kaley, following her career" and "you can actually change the market."
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
