Indie clean fragrance business Ellis Brooklyn raised $1 million in seed funding from Stage1 Financial and Toni Ko, the founder of NYX.
WHO: Ellis Brooklyn was founded by New York Times’ Skin Deep columnist and author Bee Shapiro in 2019. The modern, luxury fragrance brand was created with the ethos of clean ingredients and sustainable sourcing.
Over the past five years, Stage 1 Financial has organically built a platform that generates validated deal flow; they no longer just support the investment process, they are part of it.
WHY: The capital will be used to expand international distribution and build a team.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS: “A lot of reports are like, ‘fragrance and makeup are down.’ I do know some cool brands though that are up, and I’m happy to say we’re one of them,” Bee Shapiro said to WWD. Eau de parfums have sold well for the brand, she noted, which launched two fragrances—Sweet and Salt—right before the pandemic, along with a few other products. “It was a huge risk for us from a capital perspective. And honestly, it completely outperformed our expectations. It outperformed Sephora’s expectations,” she said.
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