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🟣 Issue No. 48: RITUAL

🟣 Issue No. 48: RITUAL

Learn the strategies that turned RITUAL into a top-selling wellness brand.

Kunle Campbell
March 28, 2025

wellness commerce insights

$100M BRAND STORY

💊 Ritual: The $100M Vitamin Brand Built on Skepticism, Science & Motherhood

What happens when a pregnant venture capitalist can’t find a prenatal vitamin she trusts? She builds one from scratch while still four months pregnant.

That’s how Ritual was born. Founded by Katerina Schneider in 2016, Ritual is on a mission to bring transparency, science, and traceability to an outdated, opaque supplement industry. What started as a deeply personal problem has evolved into a $100M+ business and one of the most trusted wellness brands in the U.S.—especially among women.

The brand didn’t just sell vitamins. It reimagined what it meant to take a daily supplement. And it did it with obsessive attention to detail—from ingredients backed by peer-reviewed science to a minty capsule that made people want to stick to their habit.

Are They Funded or Bootstrapped?

Definitely funded and smart about it. Ritual raised a $1.3M seed round while Katerina was four months pregnant and still building the idea. She leveraged her deep VC network (she previously ran Troy Carter’s fund, investing in Uber, Dropbox, and Spotify) to land early believers.

Since then, they’ve raised over $50M in capital, backing clinical trials, supply chain innovation, and a 20-person in-house scientific team. Ritual wasn’t built to be trendy it was built to last.

Their Origin Story

Katerina’s story is equal parts “mom on a mission” and “data-driven skeptic.”

She grew up in a health-obsessed household—her mother was a macrobiotic chef who healed from breast cancer without chemo. Katerina later built her career in investment banking, tech startups, and VC, but it wasn’t until she got pregnant that she had her “wait, what’s in this?” moment.

She realized her prenatal vitamin contained ingredients she wouldn’t allow in her deodorant. That kicked off a deep research spiral: aluminum, titanium dioxide, synthetic folic acid ingredients either ineffective or harmful. And no one she knew could even remember the brand they took. Zero loyalty. Zero trust.

That gap became Ritual.

Core Customer Base

Ritual’s audience is made up of curious, label-reading women mostly millennials and Gen Z who want more than wellness buzzwords. They want proof.

These customers are drawn to Ritual’s transparency, clean aesthetic, and scientific rigor. But it’s not just for women. Their expanding product line includes prenatals, postnatals, protein, and kids’ vitamins all developed with the same standard: traceable, clinically-studied, and obsessively tested.

The kicker?
70%+ of customers are more consistent with Ritual than any vitamin they’ve taken before. That’s not an accident.

How Did They Grow So Sustainably?

Ritual didn’t chase scale, it chased trust.

Here’s the growth playbook:

Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Model: Full control over storytelling and customer relationships.
Subscription-Based: Reinforced the daily habit while improving LTV.
Scientist-Driven R&D: Ritual hired a world-class scientific team from day one starting with a scientist who worked on billion-dollar brands at Schiff and Renew Life.
Content-First Education: From post-purchase email series to Instagram explainers, they make the science digestible.
Scent-Driven Design: Ritual even developed a peppermint tab inside each bottle to neutralize the usual fishy smell small touch, big retention move.
Advocacy for Industry Reform: They don’t just test for heavy metals and microbes—they’re pushing to change FDA policy on it.

Key Milestones

2016: RITUAL is founded, with a $1.3 million seed round.
2017: Launches its first product, a multivitamin for women, earning immediate product-market fit.
2019: Expands into prenatal vitamins, becoming one of the top-selling prenatal brands in the U.S.
2021: Secures $50 million in funding and launches a protein powder with a complete amino acid profile.
2023: Introduces a kids’ multivitamin and commits to having human clinical studies on all products by 2030.

Their Influencer Marketing Mix

Ritual stayed away from big celebrities and instead built a community of credible micro-influencers—moms, wellness pros, health nerds.

One standout: #MyRitual on Instagram, where customers and influencers share their daily habits and why they choose Ritual. The vibe? Authentic, aspirational, and educational.

They also leaned into UGC and customer reviews as a form of “influencer,” which built serious trust.

Their Marketing X-Factor

What makes Ritual’s marketing sing is the marriage of science and storytelling.

They take intimidating concepts like genetic methylation and turn them into engaging, easy-to-digest narratives—whether via stunning illustrations in their email flows or thoughtful Instagram posts breaking down why folic acid isn’t right for everyone.

Plus, Ritual invested early in post-purchase content that educates users on what’s actually happening in your body at each milestone (blood health, organ function, brain support). It keeps people engaged—and consistent.

Takeaways for Wellness Brand Operators

Own the Problem, Not Just the Product
Ritual isn’t about vitamins. It’s about fixing a broken system. That made their mission magnetic.
Skepticism Can Be a Superpower
Katerina didn’t believe in supplements—and that made her the perfect founder to build one.
Transparency Wins in Crowded Markets
From ingredient sourcing to third-party testing, Ritual turned radical transparency into its edge.
Make the Science Accessible
Don’t dumb it down—translate it. Ritual shows how storytelling and design can elevate hard data.
Habit is the Real Product
Ritual doesn’t sell vitamins. They sell daily behavior change—and built every touchpoint around that.

RITUAL’s story is a reminder that the best brands are born from personal passion and a commitment to solving real problems. For wellness operators, it’s a blueprint for building a brand that’s not just successful, but meaningful.

Did RITUAL’s story inspire you?

P.S. Thinking about implementing some of these strategies in your own brand?
Let’s talk.

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