Nopalera Raises $4M Series A To Expand Retail And Product Assortment

Nopalera has raised a $4 million series A round to fuel retail partnerships, including an upcoming launch at Costco, and expand its product lineup.

The round was led by Morgan Stanley’s Next Level Fund and co-led by existing investor L’Attitude Ventures, with participation from Sixty8 Capital, Siddhi Capital, Portfolia, Wealthing Club, Alamo Angels, Juniper Square, Black and Latino Angel Fund and 14 private funders. According to founder Sandra Velasquez, Nopalera, which has 17 employees, doubled its revenue from 2024 to 2025.

“This round allows us to meet the opportunities that have been in front of us that we have often had to decline because we didn’t have the bandwidth, the resources, the headcount, the support in order to meet the demand,” says founder Sandra Velasquez. “Launching into any retail is an enormous lift and you need internal support and scaling is heavily operational. This round allows us to make sure we can pay the people to move the flywheel to continue to grow the brand.”

L’Attitude Ventures is reinvesting in Nopalera after leading the premium lifestyle brand’s $2.7 million seed funding in 2022. The firm currently manages over $100 million in assets and is the largest early-stage venture capital fund focused on Latinx entrepreneurs.

In a statement, Laura Moreno Lucas, general partner at L’Attitude Ventures, says, “Women-led startups receive only about 2 % of U.S. venture capital funding, and Latina founders receive even less. Sandra’s success shows the growing impact and potential of outperforming founders.” Velasquez says, “It’s not easy being first or being one of the first, but it is critical that we continue to normalize not only that Latina founders can do this, but that culture-forward brands are truly global and driving the global economy.”

Even still, achieving the milestone wasn’t easy. By the time Velasquez began raising the series A round in June 2025, she expected the process to be smoother than Nopalera’s seed round, when she was practically forging investor relationships from ground zero. Instead, it was drawn out and challenging, taking months to close amid a tough funding environment with attention largely stuck on artificial intelligence.

“It leaves fewer people investing in consumer, but I guess the pro side of that is it narrows down your choices of who you’re going to talk to,” says Velasquez. “It’s always a matter of finding the right people that align.”

In 2020, Nopalera launched with five products—Flor de Mayo Cactus Soap, Noche Clara Cactus Soap, Planta Futura Cactus Soap, Moisturizing Botanical Bar and Cactus Flower Exfoliant Mandarina—centered upon the ingredient nopal. Since then, its assortment has extended to solid haircare, candles and fragrance, which it entered with a trio in 2024. Fragrance currently constitutes half of the brand’s revenue. Next up for the product pipeline is building out Nopalera’s scent franchise.

Nopalera’s scents include Dulce de Cuerpo, Flor de Madera and Bosque Místico. A full-size 50-ml. fragrance bottle retails for $78 and a 10-ml. travel size retails for $30. Along with fragrance, hand cream is a hero product for Nopalera. It’s priced at $14 for a 1.5-oz. tube. Velasquez says, “It’s a daily habit, and you can carry it in your purse, whereas you don’t carry a candle or a body scrub in your purse.”

Velasquez spent $25,000 to bring Nopalera to market in 2020, aiming to elevate Mexican beauty brands to the level of appreciation their French counterparts enjoy, and relied on credit cards to fund it. She later tapped a $50,000 loan from Shopify Capital. A singer for two decades in the bands Pistolera and Moona Luna, she worked in sales for consumer packaged goods brands HiBar, Van Leeuwen and Mast Brothers Chocolate prior to Nopalera.

Retail accounts for 39% of Nopalera’s sales, with direct-to-consumer distribution contributing 55% of sales and Amazon making up the remaining 6%. The brand is rolling out to 150 Costco doors in the summer. It participated in the membership warehouse club company’s roadshow last year, allowing Velasquez to pop up at stores around the country.

“There is no better intel than meeting your customers in person and seeing people’s reactions,” she says. “We’re really excited about that expansion especially because Costco is also international, so there’s an opportunity to expand with them if it goes well.”

Nopalera has already been gaining ground abroad. Internationally, the brand launched at Ulta Beauty in Mexico and the Middle East last year. It’s also available in Australia at Mecca. Velasquez hopes to deepen its international roots even further through upcoming collaborations, including with an unnamed airline that will take place during the World Cup along and its first sports partnership with  TMJ, a Mexican agency with a specialty in women’s soccer. She  believes the partnerships will boost brand awareness and inject Nopalera into conversations timed with big global moments.

In the U.S., Nopalera, which participated in Bridge Mentorship in 2022, a fundraising readiness program by True Beauty Ventures and Beauty Independent, is available at hundreds of small retailers nationwide, Credo, Amazon and Ulta’s online marketplace. It’s eyeing Ulta’s American stores for future distribution.

Velasquez says, “We’re happy to prove ourselves through our online sales because you and I know that sometimes brands go in too early and then they’re locked into exclusivity, and they don’t have the brand awareness to make the units move.”