The interest in direct-to-consumer brands and customization continues with organic perfumer Skylar Body becoming the latest brand investors are banking on for a big win. Upfront Ventures led a $3 million first-round investment with participation from serial entrepreneur-turned-investor Brian Lee and other top-tier Los Angeles-based investors.
WHO: Skylar Body launched eight moths ago as a direct-to-consumer, customized natural fragrance brand. The initial assortment consists of four scents, Coral, Arrow, Meadow, and Isle, priced at $78 that are intended be mixed and matched for personalization. Founder and chief executive, Cat Chen, has experience in the direct-to-consumer, clean beauty world from her time at Honest. For the moment the brand is focused solely on building a direct-to-consumer brand, but future wholesale and online expansion is not off the table.
WHY: Funds are earmarked for product expansion, digital marketing, and hiring a team.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS: “We’re less than a year old, [so] definitely a lot of women don’t know about us and awareness is [our] biggest opportunity and what we’ll be doing with this fund-raiser,” Chen told WWD. “In the future, we’ll expand into adjacent product categories [and do] the same thing in the scented space and natural space, so home fragrance and personal care are the additional categories we’ll be thinking about.”
“It’s rare that we see a commerce category that so clearly leverages strong market trends with this type of high margin, high repeat rate unit economics,” said Kara Nortman, Upfront Ventures partner, in a statement. “[And] Cat Chen represents everything we look for in a founder. Cat is a triple threat with an unfair advantage in audience building, supply chain, and unusual access to the best local talent across both product and technology coming out of her years at Honest.”
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