Investment deals big and small have been occurring across the fragrance landscape. With the exception of Manzanita Capital, with the purchase of Diptyque in 2005 for an undisclosed amount, there was little M&A activity happening in the space—until recently.A $5 million dollar value appears to be the threshold for niche businesses appearing on investment radars, but blockbuster acquisitions like Advent International’s $700 million majority stake in the Sprecher Berrier Group of Companies and French niche fragrance brands Parfums de Marly and Initio Parfums Privés or Puig’s €1 billion ($1.1 billion) majority stake in Byredo prove that sales figures can go much higher. In June 2023, Kering Beauté acquired Creed in an all-cash €3.5 billion ($3.8 billion) transaction—a sale price at a 14x valuation of revenue and a landmark deal.“Recently we've seen some of those larger transactions, but there's definitely more early-stage activity now. That's a consequence of brands being able to get to that $10 million, $15 million mark where you find investors really interested. The kind of category tailwinds and a few blockbuster transactions do energize the space,” Harry Richards, Investment Director at Manzanita Capital, stated on the “Making Sense of Fragrance’s Future” panel at BeautyMatter’s FUTURE50 event.What makes this specific genre so enticing? An agile nature, consumer excitement, and great potential to scale, to start with. “Across beauty categories, strategics are looking to acquire indie brands as a means of growth.