Sweden's Estrid raises $18 million at $100 million valuation for its female razor subscription business

It's Sunday morning, so here's some days-old news because it was largely unreported in English-language media (except for Nordic 9) and deserves some attention.

Local Swedish media reported last week that Estrid, a fledging subscription e-commerce business that sells razors "designed foremost for women and non-binary" people, has closed a funding round to the tune of 150 million Swedish krona (about $18 million at the then-exchange rate).

The money comes from a slew of investors, including Camsten (the investment firm founded by Susanna CAMpbell and former Kinnevik exec Cristina STENbeck, Mattias Miksche (who was also in the news last week for backing SuperNormal), Josefin Landgård and Johan Blomqvist.

I got confirmation of the reports by Estrid co-founder and CEO Amanda Westerbom and a company rep with the awesome title 'HEAD OF PR AND OTHER FUN STUFF' who I imagine is also the one writing funny job descriptions like this one.

The Stockholm-based company was started only last year, and has managed to obtain a roughly $100 million valuation in the financing round, which it somewhat confusingly calls its fifth.

A starter kit - which comes with a razor with a steel handle, a wall mount and a pair of 5-blade cartridges with a vegan strip - costs €9.95. The monthly subscription carries the exact same price, and comes with 4 refill cartridges sent every 30 days.

The idea behind Estrid isn't new, of course. In fact, I remember the launch of a Belgian company called Raz*War (with awesome branding) back in 2009, way before others like Dollar Shave Club.

In the US, there are several female-focused razor subscription businesses, including Billie, the Women's Shave Club (aha!) and Athena Club. Also, Gilette is competing in the same field with Venus.

But it's a sound idea, and from what I can tell Estrid has carefully thought through what it needs to become a significant player for the European market. In its first year of operations, the company sold about $1 million worth of kits and subscriptions, it says.

It currently ships products across the Nordic markets, but also to countries like the UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and Poland.