Belle Brands Takes On Another Turnaround With Vegamour Acquisition

The deal comes five years after Vegamour sold a minority stake to General Atlantic, which continues to have a presence in the beauty category through assets like Kayali, OSEA, Judydoll and Forma Brands, in return for an $80 million infusion. Terms weren’t disclosed, but the brand was in foreclosure. The deal gives Belle Brands full ownership of Vegamour and places it in a portfolio with Versed, KVD Beauty, JVN Hair and Pipette at the Windsong Global-backed beauty holding company established in 2024.

Belle Brands chairman and Windsong Global CEO and managing partner William Sweedler says the holding company can provide Vegamour with resources and operating support it would have difficulty achieving on its own. Belle Brands plans to retain a majority of Vegamour’s team, but will shift some functions to its shared infrastructure. The holding company’s immediate objectives are addressing gaps in internal and outside capabilities, engaging with Sephora, Vegamour’s exclusive retail partner, and tightening inventory and product development.

In a statement, Sweedler says, “We designed Belle Brands on the thesis that exceptional beauty brands can be advantaged by scale while not undermining the distinction of their brand or connection with their community. Vegamour is a natural fit for us.” At a moment when the haircare category is thriving, with prestige sales up 11% in the first half of the year powered by treatment products, scalp care and bond repair, according to Circana, Belle Brands believes it can stabilize and revive Vegamour.

The brand’s sales have fallen by more than half from their peak, and it’s currently generating a little more than $50 million in annual sales. Daniel Hodgdon, a serial entrepreneur and former CEO of Marula by John Paul Selects who launched Vegamour with direct-to-consumer distribution late 2016 with the eyelash serum Vegalash, told the Los Angeles Business Journal that Vegamour’s sales reached $140 million in 2022. That year, Nicole Kidman signed on to Vegamour as an investor and brand advocate.

Acquisition criteria

Despite the decline, Vegamour fulfills what global president Teresa Lo outlined as Belle Brands’ main acquisition criteria: clean and sustainability credentials, a passionate community with strong repeat purchasing and subscription rates and a clear hero product in its GRO serums. Its position in the surging hair growth segment and retail relationship with Sephora bolstered its appeal. Lo points out Vegamour was an innovator in reframing hair growth as a beauty concern rather than a medical treatment, giving it a first-mover advantage that still can be leveraged.

The brand’s core customer is a woman in her 30s or 40s encountering hair and scalp issues related to postpartum, perimenopause or stress. Discussing Vegamour’s early differentiation, Lo says, “Hair growth at that time was considered a little taboo, and people didn’t quite talk about it. It was a bit more hush-hush. You didn’t put a hair growth product on your vanity. You hid it in a drawer. The fact their ingredients were clean and plant-based was innovative. They did a great job with packaging. It looked like a beauty product and not a treatment product.”

General Atlantic invested in Vegamour shortly before it entered Sephora with eight products from its GRO range spanning shampoo, conditioner and hair, scalp, lash and brow treatments priced from $28 to $80. Today, more than half of the brand’s sales are driven by Amazon and DTC, and it has about 30 products on its website priced from $14 to $88. Vegamour’s bestsellers are GRO Hair Serum, GRO+ Advanced Hair Serum, GRO Revitalizing Shampoo and GRO Revitalizing Conditioner.

The brand has marketed GRO Hair Serum as the No. 1 prestige hair serum for thinning and shedding based on 2024 unit sales in the United States. Its assortment could shrink under Belle Brands, which is rigorous about discontinuing products with weak sales. At its new home, Vegamour will be managed differently than it was during the period preceding its decline, which was marked by leadership turnover, with Robert Schaeffler, Eric Hohl and Hodgdon all occupying the CEO post within five years, that led to fluctuating priorities and a hefty capital raise that may have eroded financial discipline.

“Sometimes when you raise that much money that quickly, the financial discipline and rigor softens,” says Lo. “From our perspective at Belle Brands, it’s less about growth at any cost. We are focused on growing sustainably, thoughtfully and profitably. We value the balance of new customer acquisition, but not with losing sight of existing customers.” Lo highlights the performance of Pipette and JVN as evidence that Belle Brands’ model is producing results.

She says sales at both brands are up this year, and they’re profitable. It’s too soon to gauge Belle Brands’ impact on Versed, which it acquired in July, and KVD’s transformation remains underway. Belle Brands is slated to unveil a rebrand of KVD next year, according to Lo. Beyond large conglomerates, multi-brand holding companies have a mixed track record in beauty, where investors often spread their bets across brands run separately.

Multi brand approach

Critics of the model argue that portfolios can divide management attention and resources, fail to deliver the efficiencies promised by shared infrastructure and complicate eventual exits. Several recent developments suggest the multi-brand approach is gaining prominence, though. Mammoth Brands, which has been speculated to be considering an IPO, has been on a tear, with its 2024 sales landing at $835 million and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization nearing $100 million.

KKR-owned Wella filed to go public last month after registering a 9% increase in sales to $2.9 billion in the year ended June 30. Along with Belle Brands, there’s a bumper crop of companies picking up challenged beauty brands. Skyline Beauty Group, AS Beauty, West Lane Capital Partners-backed Blooming Brands, American Exchange Group and Nameless CPG are just a few of them.

Sweedler has experience collecting and exiting a portfolio of overlooked brands. He is co-founder and managing partner of Tengram Capital Partners, a consumer private equity firm that acquired High Ridge Brands out of bankruptcy in 2020. Under Tengram, HRB expanded through acquisitions to encompass 20 mass-market personal care brands, including Alberto VO5, Zest, Coast, Brut, Pert, Sure, Rave and Thicker Fuller Hair.

In 2024, Tengram sold HRB to Italian beauty and personal care group Sodalis. Lo is no stranger to the pitfalls of the multi-brand model. Prior to Belle Brands, she was at Amyris, the biotechnology company whose ambitious push into beauty ended in bankruptcy in 2023. “I definitely know the downside of a portfolio,” she says, but argues that execution, rather than the structure itself, determines its success.

“The concept of a portfolio is a great idea if executed well.” For Belle Brands, Lo emphasizes that successful execution requires a clear vision at the top, sharp operators helming the brands day to day and enough flexibility to adjust as circumstances change. With Versed and Vegamour joining Belle Brands in rapid succession, the company has plenty to digest for now, but it may not be finished growing its portfolio.