Joanna Strober spent years hearing that menopause was too small a market to fund. In February 2026 she closed a $100 million Series D for Midi Health at a $1 billion valuation. But the round that first made institutional investors take Midi seriously wasn’t led by a fund at all. It was a $63 million Series B packed with women from entertainment and fashion, including Tory Burch, Amy Schumer and Meghan Markle.
Celebrities investing in health startups is the 2026 version of the celebrity business playbook: famous money moving out of cosmetics and fragrance and into regulated health companies that sell menopause care, GLP-1 access, diagnostics and women’s health services. A decade ago those checks went to a beauty line, a scent license, maybe a tequila. Markle’s came in as an angel position reported at up to $500,000, and Serena Williams’s Serena Ventures joined the later round alongside GV and Emerson Collective.
The reason for the move is in the earnings reports. Beauty’s biggest public companies spent fiscal 2025 shrinking while the category next door kept compounding. For founders raising in health, wellness or anything adjacent, that reallocation changes who picks up the phone.
Last updated: October 2026
Quick answers
Which celebrities are investing in health startups? Meghan Markle (Midi Health), Serena Williams (Midi Health, Teal Health, Ro, Ritual), Vanessa Hudgens (Superpower), Mandy Moore and Lupita Nyong’o (Perelel), and Naomi Watts (Stripes Beauty) are among the most active. Queen Latifah fronts WeightWatchers’ menopause platform as a paid spokeswoman rather than an investor.
Why are celebrities investing in wellness instead of beauty? Beauty revenue is contracting while wellness is growing. Estée Lauder’s net sales fell 8% in fiscal 2025 and Coty’s fell 4%, while the Global Wellness Institute values the wellness economy at $6.8 trillion and rising. Health startups also offer equity upside that a fragrance licensing fee does not.
What was Meghan Markle’s investment in Midi Health? Markle joined Midi Health’s $63 million Series B as an angel investor, with her check reported at up to $500,000. Midi is a virtual clinic for perimenopause and menopause care. It has since raised a $100 million Series D at a $1 billion valuation.
Why are celebrities investing in wellness instead of beauty?
Because beauty stopped growing and wellness didn’t. The Estée Lauder Companies reported fiscal 2025 net sales of $14.326 billion, down from $15.608 billion the prior year, an 8% decline, with skin care net sales down 12% and a diluted net loss of $3.15 per share, according to the company’s own results release. Coty was in similar shape. Its fiscal 2025 earnings release filed with the SEC showed net revenues of $5,892.9 million, down 4% as reported and 2% like-for-like, and a net loss of $381.1 million against net income of $76.2 million a year earlier.
Now run the other side of the ledger. The Global Wellness Institute pegs the global wellness economy at a record $6.8 trillion, with a forecast of $9.8 trillion by 2029. Glossy puts the US wellness market at roughly $500 billion, growing 4% to 5% annually. One category is losing high single digits a year. The other is adding tens of billions.
There’s a second reason, and it’s about deal structure. A fragrance license pays a royalty on units sold and ends when the contract ends. Equity in a health startup pays when the company exits, which is why the smartest celebrity money has been shifting from endorsement fees to ownership for several years now. GreyJournal has tracked the same move in sport, where Steph Curry built Thirty Ink around equity rather than appearance fees.
The third reason is the one nobody says out loud. Celebrity beauty is saturated to the point of collapse, and the failures are public. GreyJournal has covered celebrity businesses that failed to find a market, and the pattern repeats: too many brands, identical products, no reason for the customer to choose one. Health has a different problem to solve, which is access, and access is something fame genuinely helps with.
Which celebrities are investing in health startups?
Six names account for most of the activity in 2025 and 2026: Meghan Markle, Serena Williams, Vanessa Hudgens, Queen Latifah, Naomi Watts, and the pairing of Mandy Moore and Lupita Nyong’o. Here is what each one actually did.
| Name | Company | What it sells | Structure | Disclosed size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meghan Markle | Midi Health | Virtual perimenopause and menopause care | Angel equity in the Series B | Up to $500,000 |
| Serena Williams | Midi Health, Teal Health, Ro, Ritual | Menopause care, cervical cancer screening, GLP-1 telehealth, supplements | Fund equity via Serena Ventures, plus paid ambassador and advisor roles | Participated in Teal’s $10M seed and Midi’s $100M Series D |
| Vanessa Hudgens | Superpower | $499-a-year blood testing and health app | Angel equity in the Series A | Not disclosed |
| Queen Latifah | WeightWatchers | Menopause program bundled with GLP-1 and hormone therapy | Paid spokeswoman, not a disclosed investor | Not disclosed |
| Mandy Moore and Lupita Nyong’o | Perelel | OB-GYN-founded women’s vitamins | Angel equity alongside Unilever Ventures | Not disclosed |
| Naomi Watts | Stripes Beauty | Menopause skincare and supplements | Founder equity, exited to L Catterton | Not disclosed |
Meghan Markle and Midi Health
Markle’s Midi Health check is the most instructive deal on the list because of what happened next. She joined a $63 million Series B alongside Tory Burch and Amy Schumer. In February 2026 Midi closed a $100 million Series D at a $1 billion valuation, led by Goodwater Capital with Foresite Capital, Serena Ventures, Advance Venture Partners, GV, Emerson Collective, SemperVirens and McKesson Ventures participating. Total funding passed $250 million. Joanna Strober, Midi’s co-founder and CEO, told Fierce Healthcare the company has treated more than 230,000 patients and now sees about 25,000 a week.
Serena Williams and Serena Ventures
Williams is the only name here operating as an institutional investor rather than an angel. Serena Ventures participated in Teal Health’s $10 million seed round in January 2025, and Teal’s at-home cervical cancer screening device won FDA approval the following May, with shipping starting in California in June. Teal has raised $23 million in total. Williams also signed on as Ro’s GLP-1 ambassador in August 2025 and as Ritual’s first women’s health advisor, which means she holds both equity and endorsement positions in the same category. That’s a deliberate stack: the endorsement work builds category credibility that makes the equity worth more.
Vanessa Hudgens and Superpower
Superpower raised a $30 million Series A led by Forerunner Ventures in April 2025, with Hudgens, Steve Aoki, Logan Paul and Giannis Antetokounmpo investing alongside Day One Ventures, Susa Ventures and Winklevoss Capital. The company sells a $499 annual subscription covering biannual blood panels across roughly 100 biomarkers in 21 categories, plus an AI-driven action plan. Founders Max Marchione, Jacob Peters and Kevin Unkrich reported a 150,000-person waitlist at a valuation above $300 million. The consumer-diagnostics thesis here overlaps with the wearables habit GreyJournal has covered among founders wearing glucose monitors.
Queen Latifah and WeightWatchers
Queen Latifah is the cautionary entry. WeightWatchers filed for Chapter 11 in May 2025 carrying $1.5 billion in debt, with its subscriber base down roughly 32% since 2020, then named her the face of its first post-bankruptcy campaign: a menopause platform bundling clinician guidance with GLP-1 prescriptions and hormone replacement therapy by telehealth. Phillip Picardi, the company’s chief brand officer, framed the pitch as turning WeightWatchers into “a front door to access menopause-trained medical experts.” She’s a paid spokeswoman, not a disclosed shareholder. The upside is capped; so is the downside.
Mandy Moore, Lupita Nyong’o and Perelel
Moore and Nyong’o backed Perelel, a women’s vitamin company founded by an OB-GYN, which raised a $6 million Series A led by Unilever Ventures and later took a $27 million investment from Prelude Growth Partners. Perelel sits on the boundary this whole shift is erasing: it’s shelved like a supplement, marketed like a wellness brand, and built on a clinical protocol.
Naomi Watts and Stripes Beauty
Watts founded Stripes Beauty for menopause rather than investing in someone else’s company, and it worked. The brand grew threefold, partnered with telehealth company Wisp on over-the-counter menopause products, and was acquired by private equity firm L Catterton. Her path shows the other exit route for celebrity health money: build the brand, then sell it to the consumer-goods buyer that can’t build it in-house.
What does a celebrity check actually buy a health startup?
Permission, mostly. Health startups fail at the top of the funnel because people don’t know a condition is treatable, don’t know a product exists, or feel too embarrassed to look. A famous name attached to menopause or GLP-1 care removes the embarrassment faster than any ad budget. Saman Rahmanian, Ro’s co-founder and chief product officer, put it plainly to Glossy: celebrities “have influence to talk about healthcare and give people permission to explore treatment.”
That permission has measurable value in a market where distrust is the default. Elisabeth Rosenthal of KFF Health News, quoted in the same Glossy piece, noted that there’s money in finding ways around healthcare system barriers, and that distrust of the system creates openings for alternatives. A celebrity on the cap table is a trust shortcut for a company that hasn’t earned trust yet.
The second thing it buys is distribution in categories where paid acquisition is expensive or restricted. Health claims are regulated. Meta and Google both limit how precisely you can target around medical conditions. An owned audience of millions routes around that constraint entirely, which is why Superpower could build a 150,000-person waitlist before launch.
What it doesn’t buy is retention. Oura’s numbers show where the real work is. Its September 2026 S-1 filing reported revenue up 74% year over year and 5 million paid members as of June 2026, ahead of a Nasdaq listing under the ticker OURA. Oura got there on hardware and subscription mechanics, not celebrity equity. Fame fills the funnel. Product keeps it full.
Where the money is concentrated in 2026
Three sub-categories absorb almost all the celebrity capital flowing into health: menopause care, GLP-1 access, and consumer diagnostics. Each one shares a structural feature, which is a large population that was underserved by conventional medicine and is willing to pay cash.
Menopause is the most crowded. Midi Health, WeightWatchers, Stripes Beauty and Wisp are all selling into roughly the same customer, and the research WeightWatchers cites puts typical weight gain through the menopause transition at five to seven pounds, which is exactly the overlap that lets a weight-loss company reposition as a menopause company. Four well-funded players chasing one demographic is how a category gets commoditized.
GLP-1 access is the fastest-moving. Ro, Hims & Hers, Noom and WeightWatchers are competing on the same prescription with different wrappers, and the celebrity layer sits on top as credibility: Williams at Ro, Queen Latifah at WeightWatchers. The differentiation isn’t the drug. It’s whether the company can keep a patient for 18 months after the novelty fades.
Consumer diagnostics is the least proven and the most interesting. Superpower at $499 a year and Teal Health’s at-home screening device both sell the same promise: find out something about your body without a clinic visit. Teal’s FDA approval in May 2025 matters more than any funding round, because it’s the thing a competitor can’t copy with marketing spend. Regulatory clearance is the moat. GreyJournal’s coverage of the peptide boom traces the same line between clinically supported products and unregulated ones.
What is the risk when a celebrity backs a health company?
The risk runs in both directions, and it’s bigger in health than in beauty because health claims are policed. The SEC has published a standing investor alert warning that a celebrity endorsement is not a basis for evaluating an investment, and it exists because retail investors have repeatedly treated famous names as diligence. A founder who raises on celebrity validation has borrowed credibility, not built it.
For the celebrity, the exposure is reputational and legally sharper. Marketing a prescription pathway or a diagnostic test is subject to FDA and FTC scrutiny in a way that marketing a lip gloss isn’t. If a company overstates what a blood panel can detect, the face of the campaign gets named in the coverage.
There’s a quieter commercial risk too. Celebrity attention compresses a category’s timeline. When four famous names enter menopause care in 18 months, the customer acquisition costs everyone modeled at the seed stage stop holding. The second mover pays more for the same patient. Founders who read a wave of celebrity investment as market validation are often reading the top of the cycle. GreyJournal’s reporting on Sydney Sweeney’s business portfolio and on celebrities investing in AI in 2026 shows the same crowding dynamic in other verticals.
What founders should take from the shift
Treat the celebrity-to-health migration as a signal about capital supply, not product demand. More famous money is looking at health deals than two years ago, which makes a raise easier and a market harder. Both facts apply to you at once.
Three things are worth doing this quarter. First, if you’re raising and a celebrity introduction is available, structure it as equity on standard terms with a defined content commitment, not as an advisory grant with vague obligations. Markle’s Midi position and Williams’s Serena Ventures positions both came with equity and specific roles. Queen Latifah’s WeightWatchers deal is a service contract, which is cleaner for her and worth less to her.
Second, build the regulatory asset before you build the audience. Teal Health’s FDA approval is defensible in a way that a 150,000-person waitlist isn’t. If your category allows a clearance, a certification or a published clinical result, that’s the thing a better-funded competitor can’t buy in a quarter.
Third, model retention as if the celebrity leaves, because eventually they do. Oura reached 5 million paid members on product mechanics. WeightWatchers lost about a third of its subscribers between 2020 and 2025 and ended up in Chapter 11 with $1.5 billion of debt, having had plenty of celebrity attention the whole time. Fame moved the top of the funnel for both companies. Only one of them kept the customers. Founders chasing the wellness wave should read GreyJournal’s work on what founders actually get out of wellness spending and on the matcha boom as a reminder of how fast a consumer health trend can crowd.
The honest summary of 2026 is that beauty’s decline pushed a generation of celebrity investors into a harder business. Health pays better and punishes faster. The names on the cap table tell you where attention went. The retention curve tells you whether anything was built.
