This Indie Beauty Brand Made Hand Sanitizer Long Before It Was A Big Deal

Long before there were social media-savvy hand sanitizer brands like Touchland, Olika and Merci Handy, there was Jao Brand and Purell. Jao is the anti-Purell. Launched in 1997, it’s stylish hand sanitizer is upscale, multipurpose,...

Rich Gersten On His New Firm True Beauty Capital And Finding Investment Opportunities In A Challenging Time

Last year was a record-breaking one for beauty investment. According to Capstone Headwaters, there were 148 personal care deals, up from 118 in 2018. Big-name targets such as Tatcha, Drunk Elephant and Elemis fetched...

How Oars + Alps Went From Launch To Exit In Less Than 36 Months

Typically, founders don’t talk about their brand being acquired before a deal is done, but are free to celebrate—and spill—after an acquisition. That’s not the case with Mia Saini Duchnowski and Laura Lisowski Cox. Apparently for legal reasons,...

“Quality Of Revenue Matters”: Tengram Capital Partners’ Richard Gersten On His Investment Strategies And The Mistakes Young Beauty Brands Make

In the beauty industry, investors don’t usually have the name recognition of successful entrepreneurs and long-tenured executives. Richard Gersten is an exception. Among the beauty business cognoscenti, the Tengram Capital Partners partner is a well-known entity—and, for...

Eight Key Insights From The Beauty Investors At BeautyX Capital Summit

If money were easy, the more than 120 attendees at the two-day entrepreneurial education conference BeautyX Capital Summit last week in New York would have walked away with big checks from the seed investors to strategic buyers...

What’s Next For Private Equity Firm NextWorld Evergreen And Its Retail Wunderkind Credo?

NextWorld Evergreen has quietly become a power player in the better-for-you consumer goods universe. The private equity firm backs clean beauty chain Credo and plant-based color cosmetics brand W3ll People. Like the beauty concepts it’s invested in,...