Parade's Cami Tellez wants to build a billion-dollar brand - Business Insider

Her pitch to help revolutionize the underwear industry was surprising to many of the older investors she approached for funding — and, simply, she says, they didn't "get" it."I knew that there was tremendous, massive untapped potential in underwear," Tellez told Business Insider in an exclusive interview, noting that underwear in the US is a $7 billion market. It wasn't just about sexiness." Tellez is the daughter of Colombian immigrants and cofounder of the Gen-Z beloved underwear brand Parade — a company that's raised $8 million in funding since its launch in October of 2019 and has hopes of becoming a billion-dollar brand that gets people to rethink what underwear can become. But finding funding wasn't so simple, she says, especially as a young woman and college student, and as someone who was seeking to create an underwear company targeted toward Gen-Z women. "One out of eight people post photos in their underwear and we've been lucky that, because our mission is centered around self-expression and not just sexiness, it can now become a creative act to share a photo of yourself in your underwear," Tellez said.