London-based Beauty Pie, a startup on a mission to bring “the world’s best” beauty products at transparent factory cost prices, announced that it has raised £72M (approx €83.84M) in its Series B round of funding.
Including the current round, the company has raised a total of approx £126M (approx €146.74M) in funding, to date.
Investors
The round was co-led by Index Ventures and US-based global PE and VC firm Insight Partners. In addition, the round also saw participation from existing investors Balderton Capital, General Catalyst and Latitude VC, sister fund to London-based seed investor LocalGlobe.
Speaking on the development, Rebecca Liu, Principal at Insight Partners, says, “Marcia (Founder of Beauty Pie) has spent decades building businesses that genuinely treat customers the way she would want to be treated, and Beauty Pie is the epitome of that ethos. With its transformative value chain and membership model, Beauty Pie lets members have their pie and eat it too: the best products at the best prices. We look forward to our partnership with Beauty Pie as they continue to empower beauty and wellness consumers across the UK, the US, and beyond.”
Capital utilisation
The proceeds from this round will help the company venture into new markets, experiential retail, and expansion of its new wellness and supplements category. The company reports that it witnessed exponential growth during the direct-to-consumer (D-to-C) shopping in the pandemic, doubling its number of members in FY2021.
With the raised capital, Beauty Pie also plans to “turn the high-markup beauty industry upside down”, with more warehouses, pop-up shops, and a new membership model (for devotees), dubbed Beauty Pie PLUS.
Luxury beauty product buyers’ club
Founded in 2016 by beauty industry expert Marcia Kilgore, Beauty Pie offers access to ‘world-class’ quality health and beauty products manufactured at the industry’s third-party labs at unbeatable direct-from-the-warehouse prices.
The company provides products from exclusive suppliers in Switzerland, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, the UK, and the US.
Beauty Pie claims to be the world’s first luxury beauty Buyers’ Club. It is on a mission to provide insider access to shop for products directly, from the world’s best third-party suppliers in premium skincare, makeup, haircare, bodycare, candles, fragrance, accessories, and nutritional supplements.
The company sells luxury beauty products from over 50 of the world’s leading third-party labs, but without the luxury beauty prices by cutting out intermediaries, avoiding expensive real estate and retailer markups – while focusing totally on delivering product quality and efficacy.
Kilgore says, “We are about empowerment, self-worth, and encouraging customers to demand more out of life, even if that means starting with their makeup or their moisturiser. We want millions of customers to have access to our ‘no-middlemen, no-ridiculous retailer markup’ pricing.”
Future goals
Marcia Kilgore wants to make its members feel like they can log on and experience a luxury cosmetics fairy tale, where they can access the best in luxury beauty nonstop. Because she believes “there should be no guilt in getting gorgeous!”
Speaking about the future, Kilgore says, “Our goal is to find the world’s very best beauty products (for hair, skin, the best highlighters and foundations, mascaras, amazing scented candles, killer lipsticks, luxury perfume (launching in November), bath oils, great body products, vitamins, the best sunscreens) and save our members a lot of money on them. Given the size of the market, and how much the average woman spends, we think there’s a lot of room for organic expansion at the PIE.”
