As part of Forma Brand’s accelerator strategy, the company announced the acquisition of indie haircare player Playa Beauty.

WHO: Playa launched in June 2017 as a direct-to-consumer clean haircare brand with five products. The goal of the brand is to create a simplified offering that delivers laid-back California style through clean, easy-to-use products.

Forma Brands (formerly known as Morphe Holdings) is an incubator, accelerator, and curator of next-generation beauty brands and products. Its growing multi-branded and multi-category portfolio includes Morphe, Morphe 2, Jaclyn Cosmetics, Such Good Everything, and Playa Beauty, with more to come. Each portfolio brand is thoughtfully selected, acquired, or created with creative and bold artists and founders. The company has a global presence with offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, London, and Shanghai.

WHY: This transaction represents the company’s first entry into the haircare space, adding a diversity of products and distribution to the broader portfolio.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS: “Our partnership with Forma positions us to share the laid-back luxury and effortless spirit of Playa Beauty and our haircare products with a larger global audience by leveraging Forma’s channels and reach,” Shelby Wild, founder of Playa Beauty, said in a statement. “I look forward to working with the collaborative team at Forma to continue to capture the opportunity within the rapidly growing haircare category as well as other categories together.”

With Playa, Forma’s first venture into hair, Myles McCormick, CEO of Forma Brands, told WWD that he liked the brand’s approach to clean formulations and effortless, wash-and-go hair.

“[Shelby’s] approach to clean formulas using natural active ingredients with botanicals, that, together with that effortless approach, feels like to us where the hair-care industry and the beauty industry at large is heading,” McCormick said. “As you think about bathroom makeover for the Millennial and Gen Z consumer, we think she just really checked all the boxes.”

DETAILS:

• According to Glossy, Playa brought in $1 million in revenue in its first year of business and was projected to do between $4 million and $5 million in revenue in year two.
• Glossy reported the brand launched in Sephora in May 2018 as part of the retailer’s Clean at Sephora campaign and represented 50 percent of its business, and was expected to grow by 350 percent in 2019 according to the brand.
• Shelby Wild, founder of Playa, and her team have joined Forma Brands to accelerate and expand upon the brand and product success realized to date.
• Forma will provide backend support and gradually expand globally, and into different categories like body and sun care. Playa will also start product development for other hair textures, like curly hair,
• According to Pitchbook, the brand raised a $2 million seed round in 2018 from a group of private investors and another seed round in 2017 for an undisclosed amount.