Mila, the new female-founded, design-led intimate wellness brand, announced the close of an oversubscribed $2.5 million pre-seed funding round

Mila

Mila, the female-founded, design-led intimate wellness brand, has closed an oversubscribed $2.5 million pre-seed funding round led by Mensch VC, with participation from Sticker Ventures and a group of angel investors and advisors from companies including Spotify, Dyson, Tetra Pak, and BrewDog.

The funding marks an important milestone for a company seeking to reshape how women think about intimate wellness. At Women’s Wellness: The Next Revolution, a conference led by RetailMediaIQ, one panel titled “What’s Changing the Script” explored what’s emerging and what brands need to know to stay ahead in beauty and wellness retail. One trend was clear: from powerhouses like Naomi Watts’ Stripes redefining perimenopausal and menopausal care to brands like Lola and Saalt elevating menstrual wellness, startups addressing women’s needs are beginning to unlock a massive market that has remained underserved for decades.

While beauty, skincare, menstrual care, and wellness have transformed everyday routines through thoughtful design, premium ingredients, and building rituals, Mila believes intimate care has remained overlooked. Rather than treating intimacy as either a clinical necessity or a taboo subject, the company is designing products that integrate into modern self-care.

In 2026, the Mila cofounders raised a $2.5 million pre-seed funding round to develop elevated essentials for sexual health.

Mila

Founded by friends Kim Aviv and Ada Trujillo, Mila combines consumer-first branding with proprietary product development to create a new generation of “pleasure accessories.” Its growing portfolio includes Aura, a patent-pending 4-in-1 intimate wellness device developed over 18 months in collaboration with leading engineers, and Bloom, a hydrating intimate gliding mist formulated with skincare-inspired ingredients for comfort and hydration.

With fresh capital, the company plans to accelerate research and development, expand its product portfolio, pursue potential mass retail partnerships, and continue building what its founders describe as a new category—one where intimate wellness is approached with the same care, design, and intention consumers already expect from beauty and skincare. In the following conversation, Aviv and Trujillo discuss the inspiration behind Mila, their product philosophy, fundraising journey, and why they believe women deserve rituals for every part of self-care.

Q: Neither of you came from the intimate wellness industry. What drew you to this space?

Kim Aviv: My background is in finance and technology. Before Mila, I was the COO of a fintech company that scaled to approximately $4.5 billion in assets under management. I’ve always loved building companies, but I wanted to work on something that felt deeply personal and capable of improving women’s everyday lives.

Ada Trujillo: My background is in branding and marketing, and I connected with this category the same way millions of women do—as a consumer. As a former Division I basketball player who also played professionally overseas, intimate-care products were already part of my routine. I understood firsthand how important they were, but I also saw how little innovation or thoughtful branding existed.

Q: How did the idea for Mila first come together?

Kim: Ada and I were close friends before we became co-founders. We spent nearly two weeks isolating ourselves in an Airbnb, researching every aspect of the category. The deeper we looked, the clearer the opportunity became. There wasn’t a trusted, modern brand speaking to women the way skincare or beauty brands do. We realized intimate wellness had been shaped by legacy companies and decades of stigma rather than by the expectations of today’s consumer.

Ada: We kept asking the same questions. Why do so many products look the same? Why are ingredients treated as an afterthought? Women expect better design, better formulations, and better experiences everywhere else in their lives. We wanted to bring those same expectations into intimate wellness and create an entirely new category built around intention instead of embarrassment.

Q: You often compare Mila to beauty brands rather than traditional sexual wellness companies. Why?

Ada: Beauty companies transformed everyday products into rituals. They educated consumers about ingredients, routines, and self-care. We believe intimate wellness deserves that same evolution. We often say we’re building skincare for your most intimate areas. Women carefully choose their skincare and haircare products. Why shouldn’t they expect that same level of quality and transparency from intimate care?

Q: What makes Aura different from existing products on the market?

Kim: We spent 18 months developing Aura and worked alongside leading engineers to rethink how pleasure technology could better support women’s experiences. Rather than simply iterating on existing technology, we focused on creating patent-pending stimulation methods designed to address the earliest stages of female arousal. Every design decision was driven by extensive research, testing, and feedback from women.

Q: Mila also offers cosmetic intimate-care products. Why was that important?

Kim: We repeatedly heard women talk about irritation, discomfort, and formulations that simply didn’t meet the standards they expected from skincare. That’s why we developed Bloom, our hydrating intimate gliding mist. We prioritized premium ingredients, hydration, pH-conscious formulation, and overall comfort because we believe women deserve products they can trust.

Ada: Across every product, our philosophy is the same. We invest heavily in research and development because intimate wellness should receive the same level of care and innovation as every other category in beauty.

Q: How do you differentiate Mila from other brands in the category?

Ada: We admire companies that helped normalize conversations around sexual wellness, but our positioning is different. We sit at the intersection of beauty, wellness, and intimacy. We develop our own products, own our formulations, and intentionally design everything ourselves. We also avoid the extremes of being either hypersexualized or overly clinical. We want Mila to feel completely at home alongside the rest of someone’s self-care routine.

Kim: Sexual wellness isn’t a niche category—it’s relevant to half the population. Our goal is to build a trusted brand that women can turn to throughout every stage of life.

Mila’s Aura pleasure accessory

Mila

Q: Tell us about your fundraising journey.

Ada: We were fortunate to find investors who understood both the category and our long-term vision. Building entirely new products in a historically taboo space came with challenges, but we ultimately raised more than we initially planned, and the round became oversubscribed. That confidence from investors reinforced what we’d believed from the beginning—that women are ready for a more modern approach to intimate wellness.

Q: What’s next for Mila?

Kim: This funding allows us to continue investing in research and development, expand our product portfolio, and bring more innovation into a category that has been underserved for far too long. We launched direct-to-consumer and are already in conversations with premium retail partners.

Ada: Ultimately, our mission is simple: women have rituals for every part of self-care. They deserve one for intimate wellness too.