Crown Affair, a brand aiming to own the clean hairstyling space in prestige haircare, has secured $9 million in a series B funding round led by True Beauty Ventures.
The round marks the beauty and wellness venture capital firm’s fourth investment in Crown Affair, which has raised nearly $16 million over five rounds. Its other portfolio brands include The 7 Virtues, Caliray, Sofie Pavitt Face, Dieux, Maude and Vacation. Crown Affair is on pace to close in on $20 million in revenues and profitability this year. Last year, it hit $8 million in revenues.
“The business is in a very healthy place, but, as we think about the next few years and what that’s going to look like, it was clear we needed to raise money,” says Dianna Cohen, CEO and founder of Crown Affair. “We feel 2025 is going to be huge for the business, and we knew that finding the right partner to help us grow the business would be essential. We have big dreams.”
Cristina Nuñez, co-founder and general partner at True Beauty Ventures, says, “Crown Affair has consistently met or exceeded their sales forecasts and has demonstrated significant year-over-year growth. They have very strong EMV metrics, returning customer rates and a large and engaged community across social and IRL. Their ability to create organic traction and growth is really attractive to us and has helped fuel their strong performance at Sephora and online in addition to having an effective and productive hero product strategy.”
Crown Affair’s big dreams involve expanding its assortment, Sephora reach and team. Schooled in the direct-to-consumer world, Cohen, one of Into The Gloss’s early employees, ex-head of partnerships at Away, and a consultant for brands like Harry’s and Outdoor Voices at her former firm Levitate, launched Crown Affair in DTC in 2020, and the brand joined Sephora’s lineup two years later. Now, it’s in around 200 Sephora doors, and select smaller retailers such as Goop and Violet Grey. Sales are evenly split between DTC and retail.
“We feel 2025 is going to be huge for the business.”
“We have a very strong AOV and big basket size on dot-com, and Sephora can be hero SKU-focused,” says Cohen. “We have been able to thoughtfully build both businesses without them massively cannibalizing. I love Sephora because it’s all new customers. Having worked in the DTC landscape a decade prior to Crown Affair, not everybody’s going to type in a URL.”
Nuñez says, “The beauty of this brand is that they have demonstrated they can scale with narrow distribution, and we believe they still have significant room for growth in their anchor retailer partner Sephora, at complementary brand-building retailers, on their online and social channels and abroad. Crown Affair’s focus on building brand, community and profitable growth is a beautiful recipe for success and longevity that we believe will be highly attractive to potential acquirers down the road.”
Crown Affair started with four products—The Hair Oil, The Brush No. 001, The Comb No. 001 and The Comb No. 002—and has since enlarged its assortment to roughly 20 products priced individually from $15 to $98. Its three bestsellers are The Texturizing Air Dry Mousse, The Dry Shampoo and The Leave-In Conditioner. The Dry Shampoo is an entry point into the brand for consumers, but The Ritual Shampoo and The Ritual Conditioner, being regular shower staples, have the highest repeat purchase rates. Going forward, Crown Affair expects to increase its presence in treatments, daily wash care and styling.
Cohen describes the brand’s approach to haircare as “no makeup makeup” for hair. Rather than crunchy, professionally sculpted hair, its products are designed to deliver effortless, lived-in styles for busy women. She says Crown Affair’s core customers are “seeking high-performance products and maybe were using salon brands, but are looking for something better for you, intuitive and easy to use.”
“Crown Affair is positioned as a next-generation haircare brand focused on a mindful, self-care, ritualistic experience.”
Nuñez says Crown Affair is the “opposite of the professional haircare solutions out there with the outdated messaging that hair needs to be ‘fixed’ or ‘tamed’ and that there is something wrong with your hair that needs to be corrected. Instead, Crown Affair is positioned as a next-generation haircare brand focused on a mindful, self-care, ritualistic experience.”
Crown Affair’s team currently stands at about 16 full-time staff, and it recently brought on Elise Valentine, previously director of hair merchandising at Sephora, as VP of sales and marketing. Elaine Choi is president and COO of the brand, and it plans to strengthen its management ranks as well as field salesforce. Cohen says, “I’m a big believer in a grassroots strategy, and we want to make sure we are allocating the right amount to that.”
In the first nine months of this year, the market research firm Circana estimates prestige haircare sales rose 9%. Investors are trying to pick winners in the category. Divi, a scalp and hair health brand sold at Ulta Beauty, announced it received a minority investment from Norwest last week; Silas Capital disclosed its investment in clean haircare brand Roz in August; and dandruff and dry scalp brand Jupiter revealed in January it pinned down funding from Willow Growth Partners, Springdale Ventures and SWAT Equity Partners.
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