The oversubscribed round was led by CAVU Consumer Partners, the venture capital firm with Nécessaire, Topicals, OSEA, Hims & Hers, Thrive Market, Beekeeper’s Naturals, Vital Proteins and Poppi in its portfolio, with participation from B4 Capital, Type Capital and a host of angel investors, including Violet Grey founder Cassandra Grey, Youth to the People co-founder, Starface co-founder Brian Bordainick, Remedy Science founder Muneeb Shah, Étoile founder Michelle Hu, Kerativ founder Joyce Park and “Hot Smart Rich” podcast host Maggie Sellers Reum.

The funding arrives as 4AM, a brand built around the idea that skincare should fit into real life, even if that means partying until 4 a.m. and heading straight into the office the next day, gears up for its first major brick-and-mortar retail partnership and a strategic pivot to wipes, an oft-maligned category dominated by legacy players. The brand is entering 1,745 Target stores with Clean Sheets, a facial wipe infused with Korean skincare ingredients that became its core growth driver last year, selling out four times on TikTok Shop and reaching the No. 4 spot in cleansers on the platform. Over the past year, 4AM’s sales have quadrupled.

“This is a space for us to be owning,” says Sabrina Sade, co-founder of 4AM. “When someone thinks of an elevated wipe, we want them to think 4AM. We literally are trying to get a wipe in every single wallet in America in the next year.”

To help the brand reach that goal, Charlotte Pitt, an investor at CAVU, is joining 4AM as head of finance and operations alongside a new community and partnerships manager, doubling the digitally native brand’s full-time team. Previously, 4AM raised an undisclosed amount from angel investors, startup founders, and friends and family members.

CAVU has backed brands like Poppi and Nécessaire as it bets on the premiumization of overlooked consumer packaged goods categories. The firm believes facial wipes are due for a similar reinvention as gen Z consumers seek alternatives to the mass-market staples in their mothers’ beauty stashes.

In a statement, Shah, the dermatologist with more than 18 million social media followers, says, “Facial wipes are the product I’ve spent years telling patients to avoid. Clean Sheets offer a better patient experience with less irritation to the skin barrier. The experience doesn’t force a trade-off between science and real life, which is why I invested.”

Reinventing the facial wipe category won’t be easy. 4AM’s Clean Sheets are going up against entrenched mass-market brands like Neutrogena, Olay, Cetaphil, Simple and Aveeno in the wipes section at Target. With its new economies of scale, the brand is lowering the price of its 25-count Clean Sheets pack from $29 to $19.99 across all channels to better compete. Most facial wipes at Target are between $5 and $7 for 25-count packs.

To educate shoppers on 4AM and persuade them Clean Sheets are worth the premium, the brand has redesigned its packaging with greater educational copy around ingredients and product benefits. Following feedback from Target buyers, the phrase “Your Entire Skincare Routine In A Wipe” now appears prominently on the front of Clean Sheets’ packaging. 4AM will be testing a five-pack trial format available exclusively at Target to encourage shoppers to try the product.

Sade was in medical school and her co-founder Jade Beguelin, a friend from college, was working in growth marketing when they soft-launched 4AM in 2021 with anti-wellness positioning. The brand has found a voice on TikTok, where Beguelin shares behind-the-scenes looks at building a brand and product picks. She has around 150,000 followers on her personal TikTok account. Sade has about 80,000 followers on Instagram, where she digs into dermatological and product development topics. On TikTok Shop, 4AM Skin sold 22,300 units, including 13,600 units of Clean Sheets alone. Its other products are $69 Rise Serum, $69 Rest Serum and $16 Overtime Undereye Masks.

Facial wipes’ no-fuss format resonated with 4AM’s positioning and audience. While facial wipes have been vilified for creating waste and being harsh on the skin, Sade and Beguelin saw an opportunity to disrupt the category by focusing on skincare benefits instead of makeup removal. Rather than partnering with a traditional wipes manufacturer, 4AM has partnered with a sheet mask manufacturer on serum-soaked wipes to leave skin feeling hydrated. Infused with rose water, centella asiatica and vitamin B5, the brand claims that Clean Sheets have four times the liquid of a standard wipe to dissolve makeup and sunscreen.

“Wipes were never something you were proud of. They were always tucked in the back of your nightstand, yet they were the number five bestselling thing on Amazon for all of beauty and personal care,” says Beguelin. “Why hadn’t there been a wipe that you could actually feel good about and that was developed skin first? And that’s what we set out to do with Clean Sheets.”

She adds, “We really didn’t look at other makeup wipes on the market. We looked at what are the best micellar waters on the market, what are the best cleansers, what are the best serums, and how can we put that into a wipe.”

Neutrogena’s Makeup Remover Cleansing Wipes currently rank as the No. 7 top-selling product in beauty and personal care on Amazon, selling hundreds of thousands of units per month. Globally, the facial wipes market, valued at $2.5 billion in 2022, is projected to reach $4.4 billion by 2031 as consumers prioritize on-the-go skincare solutions and brands introduce more skincare-focused innovations into the historically utilitarian category, according to market research firm DataM Intelligence.

4AM’s masstige positioning aligns with Target’s broader push into discovery-oriented beauty brands. Since the beginning of the year, the retailer has onboarded more than 60 beauty and wellness brands largely priced between $10 and $30 as it expands its premium-meets-mass assortment. Prior to Target, 4AM’s distribution was primarily online through partners like Revolve, Urban Outfitters and Bloomingdale’s, with a limited brick-and-mortar presence at C.O. Bigelow.

A 2025 graduate of Sephora Accelerate, 4AM has changed dramatically since starting the program as a holistic skincare brand. It completed Accelerate roughly a month before launching Clean Sheets. Rather than pursuing an expansive assortment strategy, it’s narrowing its focus to hero products. No product launches are planned over the next year.

Sade says, “We are now a wipes brand. We’re taking one form factor and then applying our expertise onto that form factor, basically, like Touchland did with hand sanitizer.”

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This story was updated on Monday, May 11 to reflect that 4AM Skin is now called 4AM.