Launch Date: January 2025
Geography: Centerville, Delaware
Founder: Sonia Gaillis-Delepine, Founder + CEO
Notable Advisors:
Notable Investor: Private Family Offices
2026 Full Year Projected Revenue: Under $2M
Primary Category: Skincare
Other Category: Wellness
Funding: Family Office
Primary Distribution Channel: Prestige
Other Distribution Channel: DTC
Key Retail Partners:
2026 Projected Offline Distribution Points: 7
Verdoie was born from a deeply personal frustration with sensitive skin and a belief that skincare should strengthen the skin barrier before damage occurs, not simply correct irritation after the fact. Founded by Sonia Gaillis-Delepine, whose family began cultivating mushrooms in Paris in the 1860s, the brand combines generations of mushroom expertise with modern biotechnology and clinically driven formulation science.
The brand was created to address a gap in prestige beauty: Sensitive skin consumers are often forced to choose between basic hydration products with little innovation or highly active-driven skincare that can compromise the skin barrier. Verdoie was designed to bridge that gap through preventive sensitive skincare—clinically effective formulas that support long-term skin resilience, hydration, and barrier health.
Powered by adaptogenic mushrooms including chaga, tremella, and shiitake, and paired with ingestible supplements, Verdoie sits at the intersection of beauty, wellness, and longevity. Verdoie is building a new generation of luxury beauty focused on efficacy, prevention, and skin health—not trend-driven correction.
Insights: Sonia Gaillis-Delepine, Founder + CEO
Why now and why you?
Consumers are more informed than ever, yet many are experiencing increasingly sensitized and compromised skin from overcomplicated routines and trend-driven skincare. At the same time, beauty is converging with wellness, longevity, and preventive health. We believe the industry is moving away from reactive correction and toward long-term skin resilience.
Verdoie was built specifically for this shift. My background and family history in mushroom cultivation gave me a unique perspective on the untapped potential of mushroom biotechnology in beauty long before it became a broader conversation. Combined with my personal autoimmune experience struggling with sensitive skin, it became clear there was white space for a clinically driven luxury brand focused on prevention-first barrier care. We are building Verdoie at exactly the moment consumers are demanding more thoughtful, effective, and multifunctional beauty solutions.
What fuels your competitive advantage?
Our competitive advantage comes from the combination of three things that rarely exist together in beauty: scientific efficacy, authentic mushroom mastery, and a prevention-first philosophy for sensitive skin.
Verdoie is not trend-driven mushroom skincare. Our formulations are built around clinically studied mushroom beta-glucans, biomimetic technology, and barrier-supportive ingredients designed to strengthen skin resilience over time. We also have a highly differentiated founder story rooted in a multigenerational mushroom cultivation heritage dating back to the 1860s catacombs in Paris, which informs both our sourcing philosophy and brand DNA.
In addition, we are building an integrated “inside-out” ecosystem that connects skincare and supplementation, positioning Verdoie at the convergence of beauty, wellness, and longevity.
What’s your proudest accomplishment to date?
I’m most proud that we’ve been able to build a brand that feels both emotionally meaningful and scientifically credible. From the beginning, we wanted Verdoie to represent a new approach to sensitive skincare rooted in prevention, barrier health, and long-term skin resilience without the traditional “clean beauty” look and feel.
Seeing our hero moisturizer clinically demonstrate significant hydration and barrier-support results while resonating deeply with consumers validated that vision. I’m also incredibly proud that Verdoie’s supplement was recognized as Best Skin Vitamin for Reactive Skin by Vogue and that our moisturizer was nominated as Best Breakthrough Moisturizer by BeautyMatter. As an early-stage founder-led brand, that recognition reinforced that we are building something differentiated within the future of beauty and wellness.
What is the one thing you wish someone had told you?
That building a brand is far less about having all the answers and far more about having the resilience to keep refining your vision through uncertainty. Early on, I underestimated how much emotional endurance entrepreneurship requires. The most important breakthroughs often happen incrementally, long before they become externally visible. I’d also tell myself not to overlook the simple operational details. The mundane things can feel frustrating in the moment, but they are often what separate a good brand from a great one. In the end, those details shape how consumers experience and trust your brand.
What would you tell your past self before starting this journey?
Building a brand isn’t about being the fastest or the biggest; it’s about playing the long game. I’ve also learned that everyone will have an opinion, but it’s important to listen only to the few whose judgment, experience, and values you truly admire. Not all advice carries the same weight, and learning to filter the noise is one of the most important skills a founder can develop. Above all, I’ve always believed that the product is the foundation of everything. If we create truly effective, meaningful products that genuinely serve our community, the rest will follow. Trends come and go, but great products earn trust, and trust is what builds enduring brands.
What does success look like in the next 3-5 years?
Success in the next three years looks like building a $10 million brand that has earned a permanent place in people’s routines. We want to create the kind of products consumers trust, rely on, and consistently come back to, even as they try other things. Beyond growth, success means becoming a recognized leader in sensitive skincare and helping shift the conversation from reactive correction to long-term skin resilience.
Culturally, we hope Verdoie contributes to a broader shift in beauty away from overconsumption and endless product cycling toward healthier and prevention-focused approaches to skincare and wellness. If Verdoie can become a trusted staple that genuinely improves how people feel in their skin while building an enduring, profitable business, that would be success.
What's one industry trend that is overhyped, and what's being overlooked?
Overhyped: increasingly elaborate PR mailers designed to generate short-lived social media moments.
Overlooked: building genuine relationships with consumers and creators. The beauty industry generates an enormous amount of waste in pursuit of attention, yet trust is rarely built through oversized boxes. The brands that win long term will be the ones that create meaningful IRL connections rather than simply more packaging.
How do you think the industry needs to evolve?
The industry needs to become more comfortable with longevity. Beauty often rewards speed in every way—faster launches, more trends, more growth—but many of the strongest brands and products are built over years, not months. I'd love to see a shift toward creating fewer, better products and giving consumers time to build trust rather than constantly asking them to move on to the next thing.
If you could wave a magic wand, what one wish would you make for your business?
We have a tremendous opportunity to introduce consumers around the world to the benefits of mushroom biotechnology and redefine how people think about sensitive skin and long-term skin health. Ultimately, I want Verdoie to become the brand consumers instinctively come back to—the one that earns a permanent place in their routine because the products simply work. That level of trust creates everything else: the ability to innovate, invest in bigger ideas, and build a lasting business.
