Uni Founder Alexandra Keating On Her Brand’s Fundraising Process And Future Stores

At 20 years old, Alexandra Keating created the platform GoFundraise while a student at University of Sydney after soliciting money for a charity and realizing nonprofits could use a low-cost fundraising platform. Five years after selling that company in 2008, she co-founded DWNLD, a content management system bought by Dropbox in 2017. In between and after the startups, she worked as VP of marketing and partnerships at Thrillist and tried her hand at investing at LionTree Advisors and RSE Ventures, but realized entrepreneurialism is her jam.

“You just become obsessed with a problem. The more you think about it, the more you want to do it,” says Keating. “I just think I’m a bad investor. I think I’m too controlling. I want to get in there, and I want to change things and really help. I think I’ll probably just keep doing it, to be honest.”

At her latest entrepreneurial project, 1-year-old refillable body care brand Uni, Keating, who’s father is former Australian prime minister Paul John Keating, is confronting the beauty industry’s contribution to damage to the oceans and their inhabitants. The brand, which houses its products in reusable dispensers, has drawn $4 million in seed investment at a valuation of $25 million, according to the publication Women’s Wear Daily, and is currently nailing down its next tranche of funding.

Beauty Independent talked to Keating about the difference between running a technology startup and a beauty brand, consumer interest in and responsibility for sustainability, distribution at Erewhon, Goop, hotels and more, future Uni stores, and how she’s pursuing capital in a tough environment.

You initially began thinking of entering the beauty industry when you were working in the investment world. What happened? 

I started looking at commerce and beauty, and the problems in the industry. I realized that the beauty industry was unbelievably toxic. As a consumer, I had no idea that products were so bad for my skin. I had no idea that people weren’t changing their packaging due to factory constraints. People are still putting plastic into the world even though they know it just lasts forever. One third of single-use plastics comes from the personal care industry, so they have a lot to answer for.

At the same time, I happened to go to Australia, went to the Great Barrier Reef with my boyfriend who’s now my husband, and the reefs are bleached. They’re just so different to what I remembered as a kid. I found out actually it was the tourists, and it was their sunscreen. It was falling off the tourists, and it was directly bleaching the coral. If you’re lucky enough to be on a private boat or a plane and you go further out, it’s not as bleached.

This idea that people were ruining one of the seven wonders of the world was just crazy to me. It was just this heartbreaking moment. I started talking to everyone about it. I went to Marc Atlan—he did the Comme des Garçons perfume bottles and Kjaer Weis refillable makeup—and I pleaded with him and said, “I need something that looks cool because, if it doesn’t look cool, people aren’t going to buy it. Will you go on this journey with me to try and find a sustainable way for us to package personal care?”

As a French creative director and perfume master, he was not interested at all in DTC or personal care, but thankfully I convinced him. He asked me what I was going to call it, and I said it was called Uni after sea urchin. He fell in love with that concept and started drawing bottles and containers. We went on this journey together.

It’s been wild to see the beauty industry support us is in really thinking about not just about formulation, but holistically. So, where are your raws coming from? Are they sustainably sourced? We use 100% recycled aluminum, making sure it’s 100% recyclable, and we make sure the caps are the same so they can all get recycled. We have carbon-neutral shipping.

Blue Beauty is an umbrella to explain our philosophy. The ocean can heal you, but you can also heal the ocean. We really think through every element from beginning to end. How accountable can we be for impact, and how can we make this change? Also, how do we create this as a learning platform for the future so that, if other brands want to be like us, they actually have a playbook?

When I started, there was nowhere to go. I actually used Nike. I ended up finding Nike’s impact person, but Nike had come up with this website of how they really believe that they can get to a sustainable Nike, and they’ve done a ton of work. That became our guide how you can really truly make a sustainable product.

What were the big takeaways from Nike’s guide?

The step-by-step process. So, looking at the raws, where they come from, the efficiencies that you can do there. Then, how do you look at materials before use and after use? The reason I went with aluminum over anything else is 75% of all aluminum that’s ever created is still in use today. It’s unbelievably recyclable and can be used to make so many different things.

Decisions like that very early on really guided our process. Before, we probably would’ve used maybe terracotta or something like that. We could never use glass because glass can’t go in the shower. The Nike playbook really had done the work in looking through all elements of the process.

Uni founder and CEO Alexandra Keating

As the daughter of a prime minister, did you feel like there was a career path for you laid out or did you make your own path?

I kind of want to go back to university now. I didn’t study economics because my dad was like, “You’ll be taught to think in the same way as everyone else.” He thought it was very important that I studied sociology or art history and to really encourage myself to think differently. Now, as I’m building companies, the commerce background would’ve been [helpful], but I’ve got good people around me who have taught me these things along the way.

My dad’s a man of the people, and he forced the country into a recession when the country didn’t feel like it needed to, but, as a result, it now has one of the largest economies in the world despite its size. The impact he had on me was really to make a difference, but to think differently and approach things differently.

I didn’t really know where I was going to end up. I think it was a pretty crazy thing to do to start a company at that age in tech. We had no angel funds. There was nothing, no way of funding the business or no community, not like you have today. So, it was a very, very difficult thing to do. Actually, when I look back at it, probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I think the fact that I felt like I could do it probably came from him.

What’s your take on plastic in the beauty industry?

There are different kinds of plastic. I think the biggest issue with the industry is, when you put different components of different kinds of plastic together, it’s never going to get recycled. If you look at something that has a tube, an inner tube, a pump and then a cap, usually they’re all different kinds of plastic. If it’s all one type of plastic, it’s fine.

You just have to make that conscious choice. Often that comes with a design compromise, and it’s obviously more expensive. I definitely know that my components are probably 100 times more expensive than our competitors. And, at the end of the day, it comes down to money. But not all plastic is bad. It’s just how you use the plastic.

In the relatively short time Uni has been on the market, how have attitudes of consumers, investors and retailers changed toward green concepts in the beauty industry?

Consumers buy us because our products are great, not for their sustainable impact. We have a very high subscription rate. The reason that they subscribe is because they believe in the sustainability, but, at the end of the day, it’s a competitive product at a competitive price. And I think that will always remain the same.

In terms of impact, it’s really only happening in the hotel industry. Single-use plastics are being banned in California [hotel rooms]. As a result, every major hotel group is changing their amenities program. So, we launched at a very amazing time. That being said, I reached out to these guys before we launched. When we launched, they weren’t engaging. Now, they’re reaching out and engaging. That shift I’m really seeing.

The retailers love it. I think the retailers really understand it as well as the larger beauty groups. The big parent companies really believe in capture and reuse. They really believe in aluminum, they just can’t do it with their brands because it takes a long time. It’s like turning a tanker. I think that the leaders in the industry are very much for a sustainable future.

From the investor side, I would say definitely more in the U.K. and Australia. If you go to Australia, even London, if you go to a coffee shop, they’re all there with their porcelain coffee cup, and they bring it back. As a result, the investors are already looking for it. We have investors who are specifically looking for capture and reuse in the personal care industry as a mandate against their fund. They’re already identifying it as a booming niche.

How did you develop a hotel amenities program?

It was a pretty big process. I started the day that we launched, and I probably signed off on the formulas at the end of last year. Our manufacturer didn’t fill gallons. A big part of amenities is we want them to refill on-site. We don’t want them wasting bottles. We had to basically do a tech transfer, and we had to reformulate where the raws had a very long lead time or we couldn’t get enough of the raws where we would essentially run out of a supply of product to make sure that we could do large bulk manufacturing.

What’s the distribution strategy at Uni? 

We’re really going community-first. We identified that majority of our customers on direct were in Los Angeles, even though we’d done activations in the Hamptons and in New York. We really wanted to lean into that.

Erewhon had a very open mind, and we said we want to put any pop-up stores in Erewhons for 12 months. It was pretty amazing that they let us do that. Marissa [Dangovian] on our marketing team was at Drunk Elephant for a long time, and she’s been fantastic. We had a lot of her learnings from Sephora in terms of point of sale and the relationship with consumers that we brought to Erewhon that they hadn’t had before.

Most brands just put their products in their shop. We did a full branded point of sale with education. We did sampling, which obviously isn’t a big thing for Erewhon with beauty. If you went to the valet program, you got mini serums, just things that they hadn’t really encountered before. We got the feedback from Erewhon that they think that there’s a huge opportunity in beauty, and the work that we did together has really shown that to them.

Where can you take it from here for distribution?

I really like the idea of building Uni stores in other stores. So, where is our consumer, and how can I get that space in someone else’s retail space? I think about things I can support in LA and New York where we believe our consumers are.

What restaurants do they go to? What art galleries do they go to? How can I really be in their world? So, I think about distribution after I’ve done the work of building that community. We just launched Goop, which is an LA-based brand.

Refillable body care brand Uni’s reusable dispensers were designed by Marc Atlan. The 1-year-old brand is available at Goop and Erewhon.

Where do you think Uni and the beauty industry generally can improve sustainability?

I’m about to do our lifecycle analysis, which I’ve been really wanting to do for a long time. Now that we’ve moved into our new manufacturer and our new 3PL, we’re going through that process. We’re at a point where we can start to really measure our footprint and start to figure out, OK, what are the things that we need to do to improve upon?

From an operational perspective, we’re always going to continue to learn and grow. From a design perspective, we’re looking at everything. I think we’re one of the few brands that will probably repackage our existing products multiple times. We’re really trying to find the best solutions on an ongoing basis, and I think innovation should be key to who we are and how we think about things.

As we start to look at other countries, I’m thinking about, we should actually manufacture not in the U.S. We should manufacture locally in those countries.

You spoke about sunscreen bleaching the Great Barrier Reef, but there’s debate about sunscreens and coral bleaching. How are you thinking about that issue and the reef-safe descriptor?

Honestly, if you go there, you’ll just notice it. I very much noticed it. Where all the tourist boats are everywhere in the water, it’s so bleached, and if you go half a day out into the reef, it’s not the same. That really sunk into my heart. The locals who I don’t think are really reading the literature, they’re seeing it firsthand.

We are developing a sunscreen. It is a very long process for that reason. If and when we launch it, we will define our approach in terms of how we market it. I haven’t honestly thought it about, I’m more trying to develop the best product that we can versus how we position it in the marketplace.

What do you use to sample your products?

It’s aluminum. They’re 50-ml. aluminum bottles that are big enough to fit through the recycling from an inch perspective. It’s definitely much more expensive than what everyone else is doing. We do a travel size, so you get it, and then you can refill it.

You’ve mentioned in an earlier interview that success to you is having other brands adopt what Uni is doing. What in particular do hope the beauty industry adopts more widely?

We have had brands that have reached out to us and asked us to power their packaging or power their amenities. We haven’t done anything today, but I really appreciate that. I also have product development people from other brands reaching out to us asking questions like, how do we do our capture and reuse, how do we wash and refill?

I always respond to them directly, and I tell them everything. Honestly, I took everything from the milkman. I figured it out, they’re going to figure it out, and they can learn from our learnings.

What’s the biggest challenge in implementing that system?

The biggest challenge is shipping, which is why retail is really important. I really believe in retail. I’m excited for Uni to go into retailers and our own stores. That’s really when I think this system will flourish. Consumers are sending their bottles back to us, which is amazing, and we love the behavior.

It’s going to become so much easier when they can bring it back to a retailer or back to us. We’ve done all of that work and that infrastructure work. I’m really excited to see that behavior change happen, and I really believe that it will.

What’s the difference between launching a personal care brand and a tech company?

When you’re building physical products, it takes a lot of time. With tech, you get to iterate so quickly. You can basically change everything in the space of a quarter. For us, every change I make probably takes me nine, 10 months to go into market. It just takes longer to react to things, so you really have to change the way that you think. You can’t really test.

What probably ends up happening is I just do it to the website. I run our website, and I’m constantly testing things, so I’m still getting that instant feedback. I noticed that people were adding a serum and a body wash, then adding the bundle and looking at the price differences in the cart. So, I was like, I should just make it easier for them. I always look for pain points that people are having.

For us, we’re kind of lucky in the sense that we have multiple different channels, so we do get to see wins. But for most brands, their wins are the milestones that they have in direct, and then if a Sephora and Ulta pick them up.

Uni has raised $4 million in seed funding at a valuation of $25 million. Now, it’s in the process of pinning down its next round of funding.

What are your growth expectations this year?

We’re one of the lucky few that will see good growth this year. I know a lot of people are preparing to have a flat year, especially in this category across the industry, but Uni will definitely see significant growth.

You’ve been fundraising in tough environment. What’s your approach to it, and why should investors back Uni?

My approach is I get to know everyone before I go out to market. I would say there are 10 key players, maybe 30 in the sector that are active. I’ve spent time with probably all of them. So, by the time I’m doing it, they understand the business, and they understand how I think about it. That’s super valuable.

For fundraising, it’s just about being organized. You need to see everyone in the first week as much as you can. It usually takes two weeks. I recommend seeing people in person. That way you can run a thorough and competitive process because everyone’s on the same timeline.

What normally happens is people meet some people, then they meet some more people, and the process ends up being very dragged out. It helps to create a more fair and thorough process for the company.

The interesting thing again about Uni is the amenities contracts that we have is guaranteed revenue. They’re multiyear contracts, and that gives us an advantage in the industry. We’re very quickly going to expand across the waters. We’re talking to U.K., Europe, Australia.

What will Uni stores be like?

With Mark, I really gave him a blank slate. He took the colors of the bottles from a photo I took of the reefs, but he was really amazing designer in the sense he took my Australian heritage into it. I’m going to give the same freedom with the stores.

I’m not a creative director, and I actually don’t know what they’re going to look like, but I think they’re going to be amazing. I love big French department stores and the way that they’re constantly changing things. I definitely feel like, for Uni, there will be a lot of probably switchovers in the installations to create an experience.

In terms of the behavior change, I’m really adopting the Erewhon way, and we’re going to run a deposit-based system. People hopefully will get to a point where they have five or six or 10 Unis, it’ll be a dollar a container, and they’re going to be like, I’m going to come in so I can get a free product or a discount. At the moment, they just send them back. There’s no incentive. That’s already a great sign.

We’ve talked more about Uni offline than online. What about the direct-to-consumer strategy?

I’m really CAC-focused, so I don’t do a lot of brand work. I care about buying customers efficiently and making sure we’re optimizing that. Now that we have that revenue, we can start to do more branded things. I think other brands that are celebrity-focused are very brand-heavy, and then that translates. For us, we always wanted to make money first and prove that we’re a good, real business. Now, we’ve got that base.

We’re really starting to think about, OK, what does a brand campaign look like for Uni, and how do we show up? I think it’s much more guerrilla, working with artists, activists. I really look at Patagonia and other amazing brands who have advocacy at their heart. While I would’ve loved to have done that before, I just don’t think companies that are launching should be spending money that way.

How big is your team, and how have you been growing it?

I like to hire people who have done what they’ve been doing for a long time, especially early on. So, we all run as independent experts in the fields that we’re in. We’re 12, but not all full-time. Most of the group started as consultants, then they’re moving over to full-time.

A big thing when you’re going into a major financing round or a series A is it’s really important that you have relationships with the talent long-term. I really encourage that long-term relationship through equity. Anyone who’s a part of the Uni team has equity so we can create that longer term relationship.

It seems like a lot is put on consumers to make eco-conscious choices. Where do you think the responsibility should be, and how much are consumers responsible for their consumption and the impacts of it?

I don’t think consumers are responsible at all. I think it’s on the company to be responsible. I mean, it’s great if consumers recycle, obviously. We hope that’s a given across the world. We know it’s not.

I think, if you are putting something out into the world, you should be responsible for that packaging, that impact. It’s on us, it’s on the companies, for sure. You’ve just got to be responsible for what you’re doing and putting out in the world.