When it comes to beauty investment and M&A deal activity, 2024 ended just as it began—with anticipation. A year ago, as we were entering 2024, dealmakers were buzzing about multiple interest rate cuts to jump-start the market, private equity getting back in the game, and the continued hunger of strategic buyers looking to acquire innovation and access to new customers. Indeed, some of these great expectations came to fruition in 2024, but as we look ahead to 2025, dealmakers find themselves, once again, optimistic and anticipating many of those same things.For the full year 2024, the BeautyMatter Deal Index tracked 297 deals, up 15.1% from 2023, when it tracked 258. The year started off strong in Q1, when deal activity was up 16.1%, but started to feel like a bit of a roller coaster by Q2, when activity fell 20.3%, and growth deals in particular bottomed out with the lowest number of deals in the history of the Index. Q2 saw just 16 growth deals, a far cry from the average of 43 per quarter over the last four years. But the back half of the year saw a recovery led by strong M&A activity. Q3 and Q4, combined, were up 34.3% and led to a strong finish for 2024. For the year, M&A comprised about 55% of deals, while growth represented 43%. The remaining 2% of deals were the six IPOs the Index tracked in 2024, the most since 2021.