Three-year-old skincare start-up Wldkat joins a growing list of indie beauty brands shuttering, with founder Amy Zunzunegui breaking the news on Instagram and TikTok.

WHO: Amy Zunzunegui, a beauty industry veteran who spent two decades at Urban Decay, launched Wldkat in 2020. The brand was initially conceived as a cannabis brand but pivoted during COVID to focus exclusively on beauty. The challenges with CBD forced a second pivot away from CBD, focusing on unexpected and underappreciated ingredients and putting them center stage in their formulations.

WHY: The brand succumbed to the mounting pressures, including the decline of the CBD category and the tightening of funding opportunities.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS: “We honestly probably should have closed the brand about a year ago. I was going, ‘OK, this isn’t working.’ I was at my breaking point,” Zunzunegui told Glossy.

DETAILS:

• Wldkat announced it is shutting down operations. 
• According to Pitchbook, Wldkat raised $5 million in funding from investors that included Chaucer Global and Phyto Partners. The brand's initial funding came from cannabis-focused investors.
• Wldkat had retail partnerships with Ulta Beauty, Target, and Credo Beauty.