Wolf Project’s big project of getting men to adopt skincare rituals just got a major boost.
The Geneva-based brand has secured $3 million in seed funding from investment firm Ace & Co., former Richemont CEO Richard Lepeu, Ralph Lauren Lifestyle president Guillaume Tardy, Hottinger AG CEO Jean-Conrad Hottinger, and an undisclosed Kuwaiti family office active in the fashion and luxury segments, which led the round. A substantial portion of the money is slated to go toward strengthening consumer awareness through well-rounded marketing efforts that will include Facebook, Instagram and Google advertising as well as partnerships, sampling and events.
“I want to create a brand that means something in consumers’ lives beyond its products. That’s what I’m here to do. I’m here to inspire men and take the category forward. That’s not done via Instagram ads,” says Wolf Project founder Francesco Urso. “I’m much more inspired by a brand like Red Bull than other skincare brands out there. Red Bull means much more than its products. It’s a high-energy drink, but it stands for a high-energy life. Wolf Project is a skincare brand, but it stands for a life of self-improvement.”
Urso, a former executive at Procter & Gamble, where he spent almost a dozen years working primarily in the fabric care business in various countries, was introduced to beauty as brand director of Pantene in China from August 2016 to January 2019. While in that role, he became fascinated with skincare, especially skincare from South Korea. In particular, he took a shine to sheet masks because he noticed they greatly improved his skin. “My wife was telling me how great my skin looked,” he remembers.
After using sheet masks for about a year, Urso concluded they’d be the perfect product to launch a men’s skincare brand with. He invested $100,000 from his personal savings to start Wolf Project with Hydrating Face Sheet Mask following his departure from P&G in 2019. “I set out to create the best mask on the market,” says Urso. “The second part was about the mission of the brand. Men grow up with stereotypes about what it is to be a man and about what’s manly to do and not to do. Through my masking experience, I was able to let go of most of that and see a transformation of myself and a betterment in the type of man I was.”
“Wolf Project is a skincare brand, but it stands for a life of self-improvement.”
Wolf Project’s assortment has swelled since its debut to around 10 products spanning what Urso calls a pro line of products focused on instant results—Hydrating Face Sheet Mask, Detox Mud Face Sheet Mask and Eye Mask Boosters, a product released in the fourth quarter of last year that promptly became a bestseller, are in that camp—and what he calls an essentials line of everyday products like Face Foaming Cleanser and Hydrating Lotion. This year, the brand plans to unveil five products across both lines. Wolf Project describes its formulas as 95%-plus natural, cruelty-free and vegan.
The products are predominantly priced from $14.50 to $29.50. “We spend as much as we can to make these products super high quality. However, irrespective of how much I spend, I want the brand to be affordable because, when I think about the market, I need to find pricing that’s not a barrier to entry into the category,” says Urso. “We’re talking about a category that’s still very young. It’s in its infancy. I want to position myself in the premium segment, yet at a great value.”
In the beauty industry, the men’s market perennially shows promise. Worldwide, it’s projected by Global Industry Analysts Inc. to advance at a compound annual growth rate of 5.1% from $12 billion in 2020 to $16.3 billion by 2026. Urso argues one of the reasons it hasn’t taken off even faster is that men have been disappointed by skincare products that don’t produce visible effects. That’s why performance is at the heart of Wolf Project’s proposition.
“Our community keeps on saying the products are very different because they give us results we can see,” says Urso. “Men try the category—every single man has tried a face wash or moisturizer at some point in his life—but the penetration of the category is less than 50% because they leave when they don’t see results or because of the perception that the category is feminine and brands aren’t really for them.”
“Our community keeps on saying the products are very different because they give us results we can see.”
Early on, Wolf Project jumped onto Amazon along with selling on its own website. Today, 80% of the brand’s sales come from online distribution. Offline, it’s available at select retailers such as Von Maur, C.O. Bigelow, Manor and Bongénie Grieder. Last year, the brand entered 2,000 CVS stores and, prior to the CVS rollout, it raised $1 million from Swiss and American angel investors to support the retail expansion. Now, it’s decided to exit CVS, but Urso doesn’t rule out a presence at a mass chain in the future.
Urso leans on the shopping behavior of men’s skincare consumers to guide Wolf Project’s distribution. “Men shop mostly online for skincare, but they like to discover brands omnichannel,” he says. “They like to discover brands when they go to the barbershop, when they go to Nordstrom, when they go to the grocery store, but they’re still more comfortable buying online. We are DTC-centric, but we are omnichannel.”
He adds, “We are trying to create rituals and routines that give the most visible results over time. So, we want to create long-lasting relationships with consumers that see Wolf Project as part of their life. A significant part of our business today is from subscribers. More than half of our revenue is via subscribers, and that’s what we want to push really hard.”
Wolf Project has surpassed $1 million in sales and, fueled by its seed funding, Urso anticipates its size will multiply 5X. Glancing ahead at where the brand could be in five years, he predicts it will be “one of the leading skincare brands for men” and “mean much more than the sum of its projects. Wolf Project will be a symbol of the new man, the new lifestyle and a brand that men look up to be inspired to be a better version of themselves and to also look better. That’s the dream I have.”
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