Scalp And Hair Brand Jupiter Secures $3M To Expand Distribution And Merchandise

Jupiter, the dandruff and dry scalp brand on a mission to make millions more comfortable, has secured $3 million in funding.

The emerging growth round involves investors that have been active in the beauty sector, including leader Willow Growth Partners, Springdale Ventures and SWAT Equity Partners. Among the beauty brands in their portfolios are Bubble, Youthforia, Kosas, Uni, Mad Rabbit, Womaness, LUS and Phyla. Jupiter highlights that most of the backers it gained with the funding are female, befitting a brand with a customer base that’s 75% female and a subscriber base that’s 90% female.

“When we launched the company, we wanted it to be little bit more gender neutral, but we had a sneaking suspicion that women have been left out of the conversation since the beginning of scalp discomfort products being on the market, and our thesis proved true,” says Robbie Salter, co-founder and co-CEO of Jupiter. “Gorgeous hair starts at the scalp, and we were one of the first companies, if not the first, to talk about that concept and to wrap that in this idea of delivering products specifically meant for a woman looking for salon-quality products and formulations with clinically proven ingredients.”

Poised to get bigger, the anti-dandruff market in the United States has been dominated by Head & Shoulders and Selsun Blue, brands aimed primarily at male consumers with shampoos that may fight flakes, but aren’t known for nurturing healthy hair. Globally, the firm Data Bridge Market Research forecasts the dandruff product segment will advance at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 6.4% to go from $8.6 billion in 2022 to $14.1 billion in 2030. Jupiter views its position in it crossing scalp treatments, elevated formulations and beauty-oriented results as addressing demand not served by the dominant players.

The brand’s assortment spans six products priced from $15 to $40 for a one-time purchase: Balancing Shampoo, Nourishing Conditioner, Restoring Serum, Purifying Mask, Scalp Brush and Daily Scalp Essential supplement for thinning hair. Bestsellers Balancing Shampoo and Restoring Serum contain zinc pyrithione, an ingredient approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for topical dandruff remedies. Jupiter recently conducted a 60-day, 30-participant clinical trial and consumer study on Balancing Shampoo, and 100% of the participants experienced a meaningful reduction in flaking, 100% felt a reduction in itching, 96% noticed improvement in scalp health, and 83% detected thicker hair.

Amanda Schutzbank, general partner and co-founder at Willow Growth Partners, vetted Jupiter from both a personal and professional perspective. On a personal level, dealing with hormonal changes after having three children that caused scalp issues, she was interested in a product that could handle them—and Jupiter did. She says it “made my hair look amazing and became a staple brand in my house.”

“Women have been left out of the conversation since the beginning of scalp discomfort products being on the market.”

On a professional level, Schutzbank concurred with Jupiter that there’s a gap in the dandruff treatment market for a brand directed at women, notably women with color-treated hair who account for 50% of Jupiter’s customers, as serious about hair health as it is about scalp health. “Historically, the scalp discomfort category has been synonymous with dusty old dandruff products. Those products have had their own associations like being made only for men,” she says. “It’s no surprise that women have been starved for modern solutions that are not only functional, but won’t mess up a color or chemical treatment. Jupiter is shouting from the rooftops that those days are over.”

Of course, Schutzbank also pored over Jupiter’s metrics. From 2022 to 2023, its sales shot up 115%, according to the brand. It discloses fewer than 1% of its products are returned, and it’s registered a 40% 12-month repeat purchase rate. The overwhelming majority of its sales are via direct-to-consumer distribution. The brand has entered Bergdorf Goodman and dermatologists’ offices with an affiliate program that it’s increasingly intent on building.

Jupiter plans to break into retail in a significant way in 2025. Salter believes it can fit into selections at a wide array of retailers, from Sephora and Ulta Beauty to Target, where masstige beauty offerings have been pushing up prices. Jupiter was a member of the accelerator program Target Takeoff’s 2022 cohort.

Along with retail expansion, Jupiter’s emerging growth funding will be committed to product development and employees. Established in 2020, the brand now has five people on staff and expects its staff to reach seven to eight people in the next few months. This year, Jupiter is slated to release three to four products. The products will see the brand extending into a new category, but Salter emphasizes, “Our desire is to be directly connected with scalp health and scalp discomfort. We will never launch a neck cream or body lotion.”

“We’re trying to grow lean because we know how important profitability and having a fundamentally sound business is.”

Discussing Jupiter’s workforce, Ross Goodhart, co-founder and co-CEO at the brand, says, “Our goal is to keep a pretty tight organization without creating major headcount because, with good systems and a strong engine, we don’t really need it. We’ve been also very fortunate to have some amazing third-party partners to help us scale the business. While other companies are saying we have 60 employees, we’re like, OK great, we’re trying to grow lean because we know how important profitability and having a fundamentally sound business is.”

Prior to its latest funding round, Jupiter secured funds in three tranches. It did an angel round during the concept phase, a bridge round once formulas were in hand and a seed round in 2021. Sugar Capital and Vanterra Capital were investors in the seed round. Facebook and Google advertising, search engine optimization, and scalp and hair content have been important customer acquisition vehicles for the brand, which has had success in converting consumers hunting for solutions for their dandruff. A third co-founder, Alexa Adler, is head of customer experience.

Jupiter sits in a scalp care field that’s been proliferating of late. Supercharged by the pandemic, when tremendous stress and anxiety prompted scalp difficulties and people stuck at home turned to screens to find answers to them, brands have poured into the category. There are brands that have received venture funding—Cult Capital-backed Act+Acre and Unilever Ventures-backed Straand, for example—and countless additional brands popping up with hair and scalp oils.

Salter describes Jupiter as “totally comfortable” with the swell of competitors. “Rising tides raise all ships, bringing attention to this idea that healthy hair starts at the scalp,” he says. “But we are not a company that is focused on pure beautification. We’re a company who talks about the real things that happen in life. So, people get dandruff, people get dry scalp, people get thinning hair, people want healthy voluminous hair. Our job is to connect the two.”