The Monthly Co rebrands as Necesse, opening opportunities to expand subscription Services
New Zealand based tampon subscription service The Monthly Co has rebranded to Necesse. The start-up was created by
University of Canterbury students and flatmates, Isabelle Smith and Josie Milton who came up with the idea after reading
reports of girls and women missing school or work while on their periods and following the rejected request to Pharmac
to fund tampons.
The co-founders entered their idea in up a start-up challenge run by the University’s entrepreneurial club ‘Entre’. They
came ‘Overall Runner-up’ in the highly competitive competition and took out the prize for ‘Best Business Plan’.
In October 2017, Milton and Smith successfully raised over $15k on crowdfunding platform PledgeMe, to launch their
organic tampon delivery subscription service. Over 300 people supported the campaign including other New Zealand owned
businesses such as Little Yellow Bird, Fix and Fogg Peanut Butter and Noble and Savage Tea. Following their crowdfunding
campaign they were able to order their first shipment of tampons from their supplier in Europe.
The co-founders have since begun planning expansion of their social impact subscription services.
Co-founder Smith says “after the success of our crowdfunding campaign we’ve had time to think about where we’d like to
go next with our social enterprise and we wanted a new name to reflect our new ambitions”
“Our PledgeMe supporters were the first to know about our name change but we’re now excited to spread the word about
Necesse with everyone!”
Over the next few weeks the social enterprise will be rolling out their full rebrand, which will include the launch of
their new website (www.necesse.co.nz) where you can purchase their organic cotton tampon subscriptions direct.
Necesse’s social impact subscription model means that for every order sent out to paying subscribers, a box of tampons
is given to disadvantaged women and girls through a partnership with Canterbury-based family violence services charity
Aviva. In December 2017, the social enterprise donated more than 500 sanitary products to their charitable partner.
“While our new name will help us to explore new opportunities for our social enterprise, our positive environmental and
social impact model will the remain the core of what we do”.
ENDS.