Key Takeaways:
Capital has become increasingly abundant in beauty, and the past decade has seen a proliferation of funds eager to back the next breakout brand, with some chasing velocity over durability. Against this backdrop, Prelude Growth Partners has carved out a markedly different position, using a selective approach to the point of restraint, deeply operational, and an unapologetically focused approach to build brands designed to endure.
Founded in 2017 by Neda Daneshzadeh and Alicia Sontag, Prelude Growth Partners operates with an unusually high bar. In eight years, the firm has partnered with up to 16 brands, roughly two per year, and has already exited five of them like Sol de Janeiro and Summer Fridays. For Daneshzadeh, that pace is the strategy and not by accident.
“We are a female-founded, consumer-focused growth equity fund,” she explained to BeautyMatter. “We’re partnering with consumer brands that are very much in the growth stage and partnering with them to bring our experience,” she continued, pointing out that they are looking for brands they believe are going to be global iconic powerhouses, dominate their categories, and endure for decades and generations to come.
A Firm Built to Fill a Market Gap
Prelude’s founding thesis was born from the intersection of two complementary careers. Daneshzadeh brings more than 20 years of consumer investing experience, while Sontag comes from the operating side of beauty, with senior roles at Estée Lauder and Johnson & Johnson. Together, they identified what Daneshzadeh described as “a hole in the market.”
“We saw a [need] for a firm to come in and provide capital, but also deep operating and value-added support for these brands,” she said. “Not just capital, but true partnership.”
That emphasis on partnership is reflected in Prelude’s structure. Although the firm typically takes minority stakes, its involvement is intentionally immersive. “We feel that the companies [we invest in] will be just as important to us as [they are] to the founders because we do so few, and so every single one really matters,” said Daneshzadeh.
This boutique approach is also cultural. Prelude was deliberately designed to feel unlike traditional private equity firms, which can be intimidating to founder-led brands. “Not a traditional finance-oriented firm,” she explained, “but one that felt more comfortable, more familial, and more boutique in its nature and our approach.”
Its decision to invest in only two brands per year is one of its most defining characteristics, and one of its most misunderstood. “We have a very high-conviction, high-support model,” Daneshzadeh said, “And we want to provide value to each one of our companies.” Having spent decades investing in and operating beauty, health, and wellness businesses, the team is acutely aware of the limits of attention. Portfolio size, Daneshzadeh noted, must align with the number of people around the table.
“Value-add support is a critical element of what we do and why founders want to partner with us.” Growth, when it comes, will be deliberate. “We will grow as we build our team,” she said. “We need to make sure that we lead with building our team and our infrastructure, and we will do it carefully.”
Where Prelude Is Placing Its Bets
If there is a single through line in Prelude’s investment philosophy, it is a founder-first orientation that goes beyond rhetoric. “We have a very founder-first, founder-centric approach,” Daneshzadeh said. “We are really looking to partner with founders first and foremost. We build our firm and our value-add around our founders and their vision, and we want to amplify that vision.”
In practice, that means Prelude looks for remarkable founders, authentic brand stories, and sharply differentiated consumer value propositions, a necessity in categories that are now intensely competitive. “There’s no shortage of brands,” she said. “So differentiation really matters.”
Sourcing is a two-way street. Prelude actively reaches out to brands it believes in, while also fielding inbound interest from founders familiar with its reputation. “We live and breathe these categories,” Daneshzadeh explained. “Many times we will reach out to companies and build relationships, but many times founders reach out to us or we’re introduced through a mutual network.”
Within beauty and adjacent categories, Prelude’s investment thesis is both focused and forward-looking. Fragrance, in particular, has grown to be a priority. “We think fragrance and scent have particularly strong tailwinds over the coming years,” Daneshzadeh said, pointing to the firm’s investment in Phlur, a modern fragrance brand, as evidence of that conviction.
Masstige, the increasingly powerful space between mass and prestige, is another area of depth. Prelude has backed multiple masstige brands across categories likeNaturium, from clinically backed skincare to bodycare and hair. “We believe masstige is an exciting space,” she continued.
Clinical skincare also remains a long-term play. “We see enormous multidecade tailwinds behind that category,” Daneshzadeh noted. Haircare, while an area where Prelude has historically been less active, is one where the firm also sees significant opportunity ahead.
What Prelude largely avoids is just as telling. “We spend less time in fashion and apparel, and less time in hard goods,” Daneshzadeh said. The reasoning is structural, as she pointed out lower purchase frequency and fewer exit opportunities. In contrast, beauty remains rich with acquisitive strategics. “Many of the beauty, health, and wellness strategics have been built on acquisitions,” she said. “Acquisitions are a key growth engine.”
Prelude’s check sizes typically range from $15 million to $75 million, depending on the business' needs. “It’s really math,” Daneshzadeh explained. “How much capital does the business need to achieve its goals? Where do we want to take the business, and how much capital is that going to take?”
That figure can increase if existing shareholders are seeking liquidity, but growth capital remains central. Exit timelines, meanwhile, are flexible rather than rigid. “We kind of think about three or four years,” she said, while noting that outcomes vary widely. “You can have great outcomes in two years, and you can have great outcomes in seven years.”
Female Leadership as Strategic Advantage
Prelude’s identity as a female-founded firm is neither incidental nor performative. In categories where women control the majority of consumer spend, Daneshzadeh sees a clear advantage. “Eighty percent of consumer spend sits in the hands of women in these categories,” she said. “So I think we are at a distinct advantage.”
The firm’s internal and external makeup reflects that reality. More than 60% of Prelude’s investors are women, as are more than 60% of its founders. In an industry where those numbers are typically in the single digits, the difference is meaningful. “When you have female check writers and women being part of the team,” Daneshzadeh said, “you will have different outcomes.”
Still, she is clear about the firm’s true north. “We want to build iconic powerhouse beauty, health, and wellness brands. That is our North Star. And we happen to be women.”
Like every operator in the consumer landscape, Prelude is now grappling with the implications of artificial intelligence. Daneshzadeh views it as both a challenge and an opportunity, particularly across marketing, product innovation, supply chain, and inventory planning. “The challenge is where do we want to invest time and resources and focus,” she said, “and we see it as our role as partners to bring learnings across our portfolio and from the outside world to our partner founders.”
In a beauty industry increasingly defined by noise, speed, and scale, Prelude Growth Partners is betting on something quieter but rarer: patience, partnership, and conviction. For founders looking to build brands that last, that difference may matter more than ever.