Cathexis Holdings makes a $20 million investment for a minority stake in Bellami Hair, with an additional $100 million available to help hit growth targets.
WHO: Julius Salerno and Nikki Eslami founded Bellami Hair in 2012. The business includes hair extensions and six hybrid salon-retail store concepts located in six major North American markets including West Hollywood, Houston, Miami, New York, Las Vegas, and Vancouver, BC. The brand started with a focus on consumers but has launched Bellami Professional, which is a product line but also educational offerings for stylists.
Cathexis Holdings is a multi-strategy holding company based in Houston, Texas, with investments ranging from real estate and energy to private equity.
WHY: The capital infusion will fund more products within Bellami Professional in the near term along with expansion of the footprint of the physical locations.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS: “It’s the right time [for outside capital] because we just launched an entirely new collection being Bellami Professional, which continues to be our largest focus we’re going to have moving forward,” Salerno told WWD. “The size of the opportunity in that particular category of permanent extensions, we knew we were going to need quite a bit more inventory to satisfy the demand that we had. We knew we could fund it ourselves if we wanted to expand gradually, but we thought we’d be able to achieve it a lot more quickly and execute on the opportunity with the funding available.”
“Our venture with Bellami Hair LLC represents our continued interest in working with companies that operate in industries with high CAGR’s,” William Harrison, founder of Cathexis, said in a statement, when explaining the first foray outside of their traditional portfolio. “Our investments only consider industry titans and Bellami has proven to be a fearless leader in their category.”
DETAILS:
