Vancouver’s Hoseanna raises $250K from Initio Group
Last week Vancouver startup Hoseanna was one of 15 Canadian companies selected to showcase at Launch@GROW.
Hoseanna calls itself “the Netflix of nuisance products” for women. They automate the delivery of stuff women have to (but hate to) buy. Hoseanna brings convenience, discretion, and even some fun, to the somewhat mundane chore of shopping for ‘everyday stuff’ like tampons, nylons, razors and even condoms.
While Techvibes covered Hoseanna as part of a series of startup profiles running up to the event, we learned a lot more once we had a chance to talk to co-founders Katrina Carroll-Foster and Tracey Solomon in person.
We had initailly reported that Hoseanna had received angel funding from Mike Edwards’ Initio Group. Since the amount was undisclosed at the time, many (including us) assumed that it was a $50K investment – an amount Edwards is very familiar with.
Edwards has made the news of late thanks to his fast cheque writing – in April he attended 500Startups Demo Day and whipped out his chequebook to invest $50K each in CrowdRally, Punchd and Rewardli at the event (Punchd was acquired 3 months later by Google for $10 Million).
It turns out Hoseanna received five times that amount with a $250K investment in February 2011.
Plenty of runway for a business idea that needs to quickly build up a loyal user base in a noisy market.