Cindy Belardo, CEO and co-founder of Sunny introduces her five-year-old startup, which focuses on eco-friendly period care products and inclusive education. Their flagship product, a menstrual cup with an applicator, is designed for beginners or those switching from tampons, offering an easier and less intimidating option. She found Massachusetts to be an ideal place for her period care startup due to the robust support for medical device manufacturing, FDA regulatory processes, and a vibrant community of founders, especially in the period care sector.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Cindy Belardo: So my name is Cindy Belardo, I prefer she/her pronouns, and I’m the CEO and one of the co-founders of Sunny, which is our fun startup. We’re about five years old now. I’m originally from Oklahoma, went to the University of Oklahoma, and just moved to Massachusetts about a year and a half ago now.
Andrew Fitch: Thank you. Why did you choose Massachusetts? And why did you choose to bring your startup to Massachusetts?
Cindy Belardo: It’s a little bit twofold. My family’s here [in Massachusetts] and my husband got a job here in software and innovation, so the opportunity is one reason. And then secondly, it has been really interesting to see how many other period care devices have come out of Massachusetts that were born in places such as Harvard and Cambridge. There have been a lot of founders that have come through and seen a lot of support. And I think that’s a huge change from being in the Midwest versus here. I’m seeing a lot of opportunities for manufacturing support, medical devices, and FDA support. They’re just people who get it. I think that’s been the major reason why it’s been making sense for Massachusetts.
Sunny is our self-care startup brand that is focused on eco-friendly products, inclusive and honest education, and global impact. We’re really big on our mission to help end period poverty and really just start these conversations, and what all that means. Our medical device product is the menstrual cup with an applicator. It’s the very first offering of a period care device that is truly meant for beginners or anyone who wants to switch from a tampon to a menstrual cup, such as anyone who has had a poor experience and is looking for more ease of use and less intimidating options. That’s who we’ve made that product for. And we’ve seen a lot of support here from Massachusetts and from the period care space. It’s a $39 billion industry. We’ve had over 350k followers and engagement across our social media platforms, and everyone has seen our viral videos from our prototype days, over the last few years, up until now when we’ve shipped out our first batch of products to customers. And so we’re just seeing time and time again that this is very needed, and people are ready for this option.
In the startup space, you know, we’re always fundraising, especially for medical devices and consumer products. So we really kind of straddle both worlds. It’s very capital intensive, and it needs manufacturing, it needs regulatory and quality checks, marketing, and all of these things. So we have our fundraising journey of 2.6 million to date pre-seed, which has spanned from grants from pitch competitions, angel investors, crowdfunding, and institutional investors. Right now, our WeFunder is publicly open, and we’ve really seen this as a great option and tool for when you have a fundraiser. I don’t know if any of you have seen but it kind of has a video with a founder, an intro, and a company resume, if you will, and it really just goes into depth, all in one place. So it’s really easy for me, the founder with not too much time to share this with interested investors so they can all see our updates and the kind of stage we’re at. So that’s kind of what we’ve got going on. It is currently open through the end of June to the public.
To learn more and support Sunny, please visit their WeFunder profile.
