How One Beauty Investor Acquires and Grows Indie Brands Without Changing Their Identity

Beauty acquisitions have been rampant over the last couple of years, with many small-yet-beloved brands joining larger investment groups in search of growth. But capturing a beauty brand's ethos — and retaining its loyal customer base — amid an acquisition can be a challenging feat, even for the most experienced investors.

For Blooming Brands, a portfolio company backed by Los Angeles-based private equity firm West Lane Capital Partners, fueling a brand's growth while staying true to its founding story is key.

"I like to think of [acquisitions] as partnerships because we're not trying to just acquire someone and then do what we want with them, we're looking for: 'How do we continue to move forward with that new partnership in a way that's holistic and healthy and authentic?'" Brianne Moore Price, chief revenue officer of Blooming Brands, tells Fashionista.

So far this year, West Lane has zeroed in on expansion by adding three beauty brands to its portfolio: professional hair-care brand Seven and two Black-founded color cosmetics lines, Mented and, most recently, Beauty Bakerie. (They join Blossom, a "flower-forward" beauty brand, and Blue Cross, a salon and nail cuticle-care brand, underneath Blooming Brands.) And many of their businesses weren't in the best shape when investors got involved.

Founded in 2011 by Cashmere Nicole, Beauty Bakerie became known for its baking-inspired names and packaging (setting powder stored in a stylized flour bag, makeup sponges served up in egg cartons). But last March, Nicole posted a farewell message on the brand's website announcing she was hanging up her apron and closing the brand. Mented, a makeup brand co-founded by KJ Miller in 2017, faced inventory challenges earlier this year, citing "warehouse-related issues" in response to an Instagram comment on its page. Both beauty brands are now poised for a refresh as part of the Blooming Brands umbrella.

"A big first step for us with both brands was really making sure we could get in stock and continue those relationships with those suppliers that they have," Michael Wentz, vice president at West Lane, says. "I think one thing that we're very acutely aware of when we do these acquisitions is that the customer base is attracted to the specific product, the specific formulation, the packaging. And so, for us, it's really important to make sure that there's really strong continuity there."

After speaking with hundreds of companies since joining Blooming Brands, Price says the firm specifically seeks "opportunities to breathe new life into brands that potentially couldn't get across the finish line" amid today's challenging retail landscape. From an investor's point of view, Wentz looks for a brand that differentiates itself from its competitors.

"Where we tend to focus on are brands that are ready to take a more moderate approach to growth, but really know their customer, know what their customer wants and are able to grow within those confines and guidelines in a profitable, sustainable way over a longer period of time," Wentz notes.

Price also considers how Blooming Brands can offer value to a brand as well as how that brand can fill gaps within the company's existing portfolio. Take both Mented and Beauty Bakerie's prominent direct-to-consumer (DTC) followings, for example: Now, Blooming Brands can potentially apply their business knowledge of growing a DTC base to its other portfolio brands.

But reinvigorating a brand without sacrificing its defining characteristics and established customer base can be difficult. When communicating with brands, Price asks for their three pillars: "What are the three foundational things that define you as a brand?" Once defined, the team aims to never veer from those core characteristics. She singles out one way to ensure the brand's voice remains consistent through an acquisition: "Not making products for the sake of making them."

"If it doesn't align with the three pillars, whatever the brand's three pillars are, we shouldn't be making that product or putting our efforts into that area," she continued. "We need to focus on what we're really good at for each individual brand. And that's what drives the go-to market strategy and what drives our product development process."

When it comes to expanding the company as a whole, Blooming Brands takes a "cross-functional and omni-channel" approach. Price says it's focused on the synergy of its portfolio brands, which can be further explored through collaborative capsule collections and cross pollinating across social media pages. "We really want to be able to address a consumer's needs from head to toe," she says.

As Blooming Brands plans to expand its portfolio even more through the end of the year, the company is in the process of restructuring: It's moving Los Angeles facility from San Fernando to a larger one in Chatsworth, as well as growing its team.

"There's no way we can continue to do it with the staffing and the way that we've been structured previously," Price notes. "So internally, we're having a lot of strategy meetings about what the organizational structure is going to look like, who's going to sit in which seat, so that we can continue to make sure we don't have gaps in the way that the brand is represented."

Looking ahead, West Lane is focused on acquiring businesses that fill in holes in its portfolio, whether from a category or product assortment standpoint. Within the wide range of potential categories to explore, Wentz points to skin care and accessories for hair, skin or color cosmetics as possibilities, while Price calls out nutraceuticals and sexual wellness.

"We want to make sure that we have a holistic understanding of those brands and that they can sustain themselves through their own profitability and growth within the next 24 months. That's my surgical goal," Price says. "That is going to be accomplished through omni-channel distribution, it just can't be done through the direct-to-consumer channels that maybe they're still in.

Along with getting Blooming Brands's recent acquisitions in a healthy place business-wise, Price's big-picture plans include a Blooming Brands block at Ulta in the next two years, as well as penetration of other big wholesale channels.

"We're going to have to figure out how to make that headway back into brick and mortar and make that headway back through Amazon and optimize Amazon so that they have a really, really strong profitable P&L statement at the end of the year and they can stand on their own."

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