After give years of self-funding, sexual wellness brand Normal has turned to crowd-sourced funding (CSF) platform Birchal for its first external raise.
Normal, cofounded by sex coach, author and educator Georgia Grace and ex-McKinsey consultant and social scientist Lucy Wark, is Australia’s top female-founded sexual wellness brand, offering products to help people, especially women, have a good time, alongside expert-led free education and conversation-shaping research.
The Normal site includes “nightstand-friendly” products, approachable how-to videos and personalised recommendations to make shopping for sex toys stress-free and stigma-free. Its free online sex ed resources includes 3 movie-length video courses (The Modern Guide to Sex, Come Together and The Body Confidence Course), as well as over 100 written guides on sexual health, pleasure, relationships, communication and more.
Since launching in 2021, Normal has generated nearly $6 million in sales – that figure has increased by 200% over the past two years, bringing customer satisfaction to more than 40,000 people.
If you’re size-obsessed, then it’s worth knowing that sexual wellness is a $60 billion-plus global market, predicted to hit $100bn in five years.
But despite that success, Wark, the CEO, said finding growth capital through traditional channels has been harder than in many other sectors.
“Sexual wellness is challenging for a lot of professional investors, whether due to stigma or getting caught up in internal policies designed to restrict socially harmful investments – even though businesses like ours actually have a hugely positive social impact,” she said.
“For example, the free online sex education resources which are funded by our toys have now been viewed tens of millions of times in over 40 countries – but when we actually passed investment committee at a major VC fund, we ended up being blocked by vice clause concerns.
“We’ve built a high-growth business without external investment, but it’s meant finding alternative growth pathways at every turn. Equity crowdfunding is the logical next step; it lets us scale with the same community that helped us succeed.”
The Sydney startup’s pun-laden social media marketing has its own cult following of more than 200,000 people. Collaborations with sex-positive creators such Abbie Chatfield from Option A and The Kink Kit, Cheek Media’s Hannah Ferguson and The Heartbreak Club’s Kath Ebbs also attracted a new, younger audience.
Wark said they’re looking to raise up to $1 million, and the plan to use for funds to expand B2B partnerships, develop new recurring-purchase consumables, increase the free education library and marketing. The two-week Expressions-of-Interest phase of the CSF campaign got underway today ahead of a two-week raise in early December.
Birchal CEO Kirstin Hunter said Normal exemplifies a broader recalibration in startup funding for women, with the platform’s Birchal’s 2025 Funded! report finding the 32% of all CSF capital went to teams with at least one woman founder, more than double the VC figure of 15%.
“There’s a generation of founders who are proven operators but still undercapitalised because of challenges and bias in the venture capital funding model,” Hunter said.
“The crowd is filling that gap, backing conviction and performance rather than pattern recognition.”
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