KilgourMD has closed a new funding round.

The Series A, of undisclosed size, was led by Prelude Growth Partners, who counts Westman Atelier, Tower 28, Summer Fridays, Phlur and Sol de Janeiro as past beauty investments.

It follows the seed round led by Willow Growth Partners that founder Dr. James Kilgour closed last year. Willow, alongside Joyance Partners and Able Partners, participated in the series A, too.

“In the last 12 months, we’ve done more than $40 million in gross sales. We’re now selling a bottle of our serum every 20 seconds in the U.S. The brand has exploded in terms of volume just even since our seed round,” Kilgour said. “We’re seeing this organic groundswell of customers seeing results, recommending the product to others.”

Kilgour founded the brand in 2024, and he works as both a practicing dermatologist and clinical researcher. It was in his own practice that Kilgour identified a market gap for hair growth and regrowth. Currently, there are only four products — shampoo, conditioner and two hair serums — in the brand’s arsenal, and they only sell on its website.

“We have a really curated lineup of skus,” Kilgour said. “We have our two hero serums, which are a system that’s built the bulk of the business. We launched our shampoo and conditioner in January and those have been selling really, really well. Our philosophy is that every product really has to have a reason to exist and needs to bring innovation to the space.”

The brand is bringing a dandruff product to market at the end of the year. Kilgour said he’s looking to broaden the need states his brand targets.

“There are a number of levers for growth of the brand, but we’re really focusing on our core consumer, which is female from 45 to 65. It’s a group of women that has been really underserved in this space and continues to be our focus,” Kilgour said. Although different in terms of the underpinning science, the approach to product creation was the same as its predecessors.

“Every product that we bring to market really will follow the same playbook of innovative active ingredients and innovative formulation, and then a packet of clinical and laboratory data around that product to support why it’s the optimal product,” Kilgour said. “We take an always-on approach to innovation. We launched our two initial serums in January of 2024, and we’re currently on the third iterations of those products. And then, it’s about expanding the product line again in that very curated way, increasing brand awareness.”

From a retail perspective, the brand is still focused on its own website, where it has 45,000 active subscribers. Retention rates are north of 60 percent globally. “We’ll also have a professional channel expansion as well,” Kilgour said.

On the Prelude side, the thinking was manifold. “We’ve been looking at the scalp health space, and there are meaningful tailwinds behind it,” said Alicia Sontag, cofounder and managing partner at Prelude Growth Partners. “We were introduced to Dr. Kilgour and he makes the science accessible. He reminds us that like everyone’s skin ages, everyone’s scalp ages and causes hair thinning. It’s a very universal concern. We believe that KilgourMD will be the iconic global powerhouse brand in scalp health.”

Sontag added that science was the first box ticket on her rubric, as well as Kilgour’s own thought leadership as a brand founder. “This is about scalp health more broadly, and thinking about skin health and everything we do to take care of our facial skin — there is so much opportunity here,” Sontag said. “We’re looking for categories with tailwinds, A-plus brands within those categories and A-plus founders. That’s hard enough to find. For me personally, I’m using the product every day. I’m a true convert, a true believer, an investor and I’m also an advocate from the community. We love when those kinds of worlds converge.”