Poised for further growth in China’s fast-expanding personal care for kids market
as it continues to scale on the back of secular tailwinds

GUANGZHOU, China, Dec. 19, 2023 — Hi!Papa, a rapidly-growing personal care company focused on 3- to 12-year-old children in China, today announced that it has completed a Series A+ fundraise led by L Catterton, a leading global consumer-focused investment firm. The transaction positions Hi!Papa to further scale in the country’s fast-expanding personal care for kids market.

Propelled by secular tailwinds such as young mums’ increasing application of their personal care habits to their children, the market has been growing approximately 12% annually over the past four years and is expected to reach RMB 52 billion in 2026. Expanding at around 38% annually over the same period, the masstige segment in which Hi!Papa operates is driving most of this growth. Consumers are also increasingly purchasing domestic brands instead of international ones as the market further evolves, with local players gaining a larger share of the pie, in line with the way the industry has matured in other geographies such as Japan, South Korea, and the US.

Having a customer-centric iterative research and development process, Hi!Papa has built a portfolio of highly-acclaimed products including sunscreens, as well as face cleansers and creams. These are progressively developed based on insights and feedback the company gathers from a group of around 200,000 consumers before official launches. Bearing testament to the quality of its products, customers rank the brand ahead of others when evaluating them based on key purchase considerations such as ingredient safety, product efficacy, and texture.

Coupled with having an omnichannel presence and well-targeted marketing campaigns, Hi!Papa’s portfolio of stellar products has enabled it to grow swiftly. Its products have best-in-class conversion and repurchase rates, and its customers are avid advocates of the brand. Accordingly, its products are consistently top sellers on online platforms such as Douyin and Tmall, and are gaining traction offline across the country as well. Attesting to the robust fundamentals that underpin the rising demand for its products which persists through macroeconomic cycles, its revenue and profit have not only both increased several fold over the past few years, but also doubled over the past 12 months.

“Hi!Papa is committed to providing school-age kids in China with safe, gentle, and effective skincare solutions that meet their unique needs,” commented Hi!Papa founder and CEO Jiangsheng Xuyu. “There are many water-centric skincare products for babies and toddlers, as well as many anti-acne ones targeted at adolescents, but almost none specially formulated for children aged 3 to 12. We have made significant headway since our establishment just four years ago and are excited about the road ahead as we leverage L Catterton’s operating capabilities to continue building our brand, broadening our product suite, and augmenting our distribution network.”

Scott Chen, a managing partner in the RMB fund of L Catterton, added, “Having made more than 30 investments in the global personal care space, we have seen demand for products which specially meet children’s skincare needs arise in other markets as they mature, and are not surprised that this arc is now unfolding in China too. Hi!Papa has likewise identified this market opportunity and methodically developed products that resonate with its target consumers, enabling it to not only capture white space, but also engender strong brand equity and win long-term customer loyalty. Its many achievements since its founding have been remarkable and we believe that it is poised for further success.”

L Catterton has extensive experience building personal care and children-focused brands across the world. Current and past investments in these sectors include Elemis, ETVOS, Function of Beauty, The Honest Company, Irene Forte Skincare, Oddity (the parent company of Il Makiage), TULA, Hanna Andersson, Plum Organics, and Zarbee’s Naturals.

About L Catterton

L Catterton is a market-leading consumer-focused investment firm, managing approximately $34 billion of equity capital across three multi-product platforms: private equity, credit, and real estate. Leveraging deep category insight, operational excellence, and a broad network of strategic relationships, L Catterton’s team of more than 200 investment and operating professionals across 17 offices partners with management teams to drive differentiated value creation across its portfolio. Founded in 1989, the firm has made around 275 investments in some of the world’s most iconic consumer brands. For more information about L Catterton, please visit www.lcatterton.com.

About Hi!Papa

Hi!Papa is a personal care company founded in China in 2019 with a focus on meeting the skincare needs of school-age children in the country. Committed to providing these children with safe, gentle, and efficacious personal care solutions, it develops its products via an iterative process involving not only its in-house team of researchers, but also partner universities and laboratories, taking consumers’ input and feedback into account. The company’s portfolio of highly-acclaimed products which have won multiple industry awards includes its flagship sunscreen, hydrating mists, as well as face cleansers, lotions, creams, balms, and masks. For more information about Hi!Papa, please visit www.haiguibaba.com.

CONTACTS

L Catterton

Julie Hamilton (U.S.)
[email protected]
+1 203 742 5185

Bob Ong / Bonnie Gan (Asia)
[email protected] / [email protected]
+65 6672 7619 / +86 10 8555 1807

Hi!Papa

Alvin Lai
[email protected]
+86 139 2880 2859

SOURCE L Catterton

The 3D metal manufacturing pioneer Announces Strategic Plans to Increase Headcount by 30% in 2024

WILMINGTON, Mass., Dec. 19, 2023 — Seurat Technologies, the Boston-based company that is making manufacturing better for people and the planet, announced today, that on the heels of their historic YoY growth in 2023 they will be ramping up hiring in the greater Boston area by approximately 30% in 2024 across a broad range of technical and professional positions. Seurat was just named one of the Top Places to Work in Massachusetts for the second consecutive year in the 15th annual employee-based survey project from The Boston Globe. Top Places to Work recognizes the most admired workplaces in the state voted on by the people who know them best—their employees.

With support from major industry players including NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm), Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund, Honda Motors, True Ventures, DENSO, Cubit Capital, Porsche SE, SIP Global Partners, GM Ventures, Maniv Mobility, and Xerox Ventures, Seurat is at the forefront of reimagining local manufacturing driven by green energy.

Manufacturing has historically been one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for 31% of emissions in the US. The Biden Administration recently announced $40 million in funding to expand the clean energy workforce to retrain and bring up the next generation of green manufacturers. As Boston continues its growth as a leading tech hub for climate-tech VCs and green manufacturing, Seurat is creating a new category of green jobs, solidifying its role as a transformative force in the industry and local economy.

“Our mission is to change the world by enabling cost-competitive green manufacturing, and bringing that vision to life will require the right people,” said James DeMuth, CEO of Seurat. “We are very excited about the continued growth of our team and grateful for the skills that all our new talent brings. As we continue to progress along our roadmap to change the world of manufacturing, we’ll look to continue growing our headcount and investing in our talented team as we make our mark on the industry.”

Powered by 100% green energy, Seurat is reinventing and reshoring manufacturing with its Area Printing technology that will deliver high-precision, high-volume, decarbonized manufacturing at sites around the world. This mission, to build a scalable solution and fundamentally change how products are made, requires a strategic investment in top talent. With Seurat’s pilot factory in the Greater Boston area already oversubscribed from customer Letters of Intent for Series Production and continued business growth following its recent $99M Series C, the company is hyper focused on adding incredibly accomplished individuals to its expanding team.

Seurat has strategically infused its talent pool with dynamic individuals from renowned companies in additive manufacturing and the broader tech industry including laser, optical, mechanical, electrical, and software engineers. Seurat continues to be on the lookout for the most exceptional minds to join its stellar team of scientists, engineers, designers and trailblazers to transform manufacturing.

To learn more about career opportunities please visit our careers page.

About Seurat Technologies
Seurat Technologies is transforming manufacturing for people and our planet. Area Printing by Seurat is the next generation of 3D metal printing designed for high-volume, decarbonized industrial production. By decoupling resolution and speed, Seurat is creating a scalable process that can compete with traditional manufacturing in every way. Seurat’s pioneering approach was originally developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and has 285+ patents and trademarks, granted and pending. Learn more at www.seurat.com.

SOURCE Seurat Technologies

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 19, 2023 — PolicyMap, Inc., a leading geographic data and analytics platform, today announced the close of a $3 million Series A financing round, led by existing investor Reinvestment Fund and joined by Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Spring Point Partners, PolicyMap Board Members, Employees, and Friends and Family. 

PolicyMap is used by more than 650 organizations and companies including government agencies, health-related entities, banks, universities, real estate corporations, nonprofits, and consultants.  

“At PolicyMap, we aim to be the most trusted resource for geographic data in the United States.  We are committed to making our data readily available and easily accessible across our suite of offerings, from the PolicyMap SaaS application to data licensing services and seamlessly embedded mapping tools.  We are investing in our data infrastructure and bringing new products to market, which will aid in our quest to both quickly onboard valuable content and easily get it into the hands of our customers through new innovative channels,” said CEO and Founder, Maggie McCullough. “Empowering decision-makers in diverse markets across the country has always been the core of our mission, and this strategic investment will propel us to achieve that objective.”

The new capital will also be used to scale growth through investment in new sales and marketing expertise which will amplify PolicyMap’s customers’ core use cases: community and market intelligence, site selection optimization, impact evaluation, and go-to-market strategies. 

“The raise reflects PolicyMap’s stellar growth prospects as it successfully enters into new markets and its ability to deliver data to companies and organizations in new ways that drive deeper insight into the workings of the nation’s neighborhoods,” said Mark Zandi, Chief Economist at Moody’s Economy.com, PolicyMap Board Chair and shareholder.

“I couldn’t be more excited about Reinvestment Fund’s follow-on round of investment in PolicyMap,” said Don Hinkle Brown, CEO of Reinvestment Fund. “We spun PolicyMap off as a for-profit in 2018, knowing that their value expands beyond markets we traditionally serve. The additional capital allows them to continue to build out their offerings while deepening their footprint in new markets like healthcare.”

About PolicyMap 

PolicyMap simplifies analyzing geographic data. To meet the demand for authoritative, relevant, current location data, PolicyMap offers a mapping application, an analytics platform, and data licensing services. Our tools are used across industries for market intelligence, site selection, impact evaluation, product development, and academic research. PolicyMap has offices in Philadelphia, PA and Los Angeles, CA. For more information, please visit our website https://www.policymap.com. For press inquiries, reach Faith Zaki, Director of Marketing at: [email protected]. 

About Reinvestment Fund
Reinvestment Fund is a mission-driven financial institution committed to making communities work for all people. We bring financial and analytical tools to partnerships to ensure that people in communities across the country have the opportunities they strive for affordable places to live, access to nutritious food and health care, schools where their children can flourish, and strong local businesses that support jobs. We use data to understand markets and how transactions can have the most powerful impact, consistently earning us the top Aeris rating of AAA for financial strength and four stars for impact management. Our asset and risk management systems have also earned us an A+ rating from S&P. Since our inception in 1985, Reinvestment Fund has provided over $2.7 billion in financing to strengthen neighborhoods, scale social enterprises, and build resilient communities. 

Learn more at reinvestment.com. For press inquiries, reach Tiffany Patterson, Managing Director of Strategic Communications at: [email protected]. 

About Ben Franklin Technology Partners
Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania (Ben Franklin) is the Philadelphia region’s Partners with a Purpose. Nationally ranked among the most active seed and early-stage investors, Ben Franklin helps high-growth innovative enterprises plant and nurture their roots, creating both immediate connections and lasting economic growth. The nonprofit has supported more than 2,000 companies to deliver an impact of more than $5 billion and 32,000 jobs in the Philadelphia region. Whether in tech, life sciences, manufacturing, or industries and breakthroughs yet discovered, Ben Franklin works to raise the community of innovation higher, to benefit present and future generations of Pennsylvanians. 

About Spring Point Partners
Founded in Philadelphia, Spring Point Partners is a social impact organization that invests in the transformational leaders, networks and solutions that power community change and advance justice. They do this by seeking out and supporting community leaders who have the vision to see what’s possible and the drive to make that real; connecting the experience of partners with comprehensive and flexible supports for shared learning and impact; and investing in innovative ideas and adaptive solutions that can spark and scale change for all. Whether they’re partnering on youth development, equity in learning, animal welfare or water sector leadership or investing in new business models that close opportunity gaps and boost social and economic mobility, they center equity and justice in all they do — supporting individuals and ideas that can have a catalytic impact in their communities and on our society.

SOURCE PolicyMap

ST. LOUIS, Dec. 19, 2023 — NewLeaf Symbiotics, global leader and pioneer of pink-pigmented facultative methylotrophs (PPFMs), announces the fully funded close of its series D financing round, totaling $45 million. This round was led by new investor Gullspång Re:food and followed by Otter Capital Partners LP, S2G Ventures, Leaps by Bayer and others.

NewLeaf gained tremendous growth over the past three years with its PPFM technology, significantly increasing in product shipments for corn and soy acres. The market saw NewLeaf’s product-applied footprint increase from approximately 800,000 acres in crop year 2022 to 3.5 million acres in crop year 2023, with a projected nearly 11 million acres in crop year 2024.

With this funding, NewLeaf will accelerate its efforts with PPFM technology and adjacent technologies in the areas of biostimulants/microbial inoculants, biocontrol, nitrogen use efficiency and methane mitigation. Its plans for 2024 include a new EPA-registered biopesticide technology shown to repel corn rootworm in corn plants, new biostimulant technologies for peanut and cotton, and continued research and development around rice yield, nitrogen efficiency and methane reduction impact. NewLeaf remains focused on its mission to help growers do more with less as they work to feed the world’s increasing population.

As lead investor on this fundraising round, Peter Odemark, Managing Director of Re:food, will also take a seat on NewLeaf’s Board of Directors. “NewLeaf is an ideal match for the Re:food portfolio,” says Odemark. “Farmers across the globe face increasing challenges every season, and PPFM technology can support them in finding sustainable solutions to positively impact the way food is produced. There are still more opportunities to uncover, and we’re thrilled to be a part of the journey.”

“This round of funding is a testament to the science-led, proven performance of NewLeaf PPFM technology,” says Brent Smith, CEO and President of NewLeaf Symbiotics. “Our team’s strong work positions us for growth and continuous discovery of the capability Pink Performance delivers in the field. We will see this momentum move us into 2024 and beyond through more crops, expanded geographies and increased acreage.”

About NewLeaf Symbiotics
NewLeaf Symbiotics is an agricultural biotech leader that is focused on the discovery, development, production and commercialization of products containing a genus of beneficial microbes that are ubiquitous and naturally symbiotic with plants. The pioneer and global leader of pink-pigmented facultative methylotrophs (PPFMs), NewLeaf’s technology outcomes include increased yield potential and sustainability indicators. Headquartered in the Ag Innovation capital of St. Louis, NewLeaf has filed more than 200 patents and patent applications and introduced its first biostimulant products in the United States for corn and soy. For more information, visit www.newleafsym.com.

SOURCE NewLeaf Symbiotics

Third Prime Capital invests $8 million in Salt Labs, bringing the total amount raised by the company to $18 million in less than a year

NEW YORK, Dec. 19, 2023 — Salt Labs, a loyalty and financial technology company that bridges the gap between employers and employees, today announced Third Prime Capital has invested $8 million in the company. This brings the company’s total funding to $18 million across its pre-Seed and Seed financings. With this capital, the company plans to bring Salt to employers as a catalyst for enhancing retention and productivity.

“Salt Labs has built a loyalty earned asset for the workplace whose value is derived from the most significant investment of hourly workers—their time. We are excited that we can add Third Prime as one of our incredible backers who shares our vision of the future of work,” said Jason Lee, CEO and co-founder of Salt Labs.

Since launching earlier this year, the Company has been building a loyalty earned asset called “Salt”. Employees place tremendous value in Salt because it is based on the considerable effort and time invested in their work. After earning Salt, employees may decide how to allocate and spend their Salt, including spend for everyday items, aspirational experiences, and financial savings products. With Salt, employees can achieve what they rightly desire and deserve from work—to be able to enjoy their life and to build asset ownership for their future.

The company’s initial pilot market was Puerto Rico, where one in seven hourly workers across key sectors like restaurants and hospitality now earn Salt. Notably, workers value Salt at a rate of up to 10x what it costs their employers to make Salt available, making it a highly potent and cost-effective tool for employer partners. Since inception, more than 75,000 Salt users have mined over 7 million Salt.

“Salt is exactly what employers and the changing workforce need in this unprecedented labor crisis. Given their expertise in building DailyPay, Jason Lee and the Salt Labs team are perfectly positioned to help companies overcome one of their biggest operational challenges – employee retention and productivity” said Mike Kim at Third Prime. He will also join the Board of Directors, alongside Logan Allin, Managing Partner and founder of Fin Capital, who led the company’s pre-Seed financing earlier this year.

The company will use the new investment funding to bring Salt to large enterprises in the USA. 

Across its early employer partners, Salt Labs has driven meaningful improvement in employee retention rates. In the month of November, the employee turnover rate for Salt users was 72% lower than for non-Salt users. 

“We are excited to introduce Salt to our employees so they can see the output of their work real-time and to enjoy the benefits of the work they are doing today, in the future”, said Sam Falletta, CEO of Incept.

Salt Labs is helping to build a workforce where hourly employees can measure, capture and ultimately reward themselves for the work they do, in turn creating better financial outcomes and a more engaged workforce. To learn more about Salt Labs’ funding and enterprise solution, please visit here.

About Salt Labs:

The mission of Salt Labs is to enable hourly workers to own the long-term value of their work. We envision a future where workers can capture the value of their work beyond their hourly wage, leading to long-term wealth creation and a more engaged workforce. To achieve this mission, we’ve built a first-of-its-kind loyalty earned asset that leads to higher levels of retention and productivity.

Salt Labs was founded in late 2022 by a team that includes repeat founders Jason Lee and Rob Law, who founded DailyPay, a $2bn HR and FinTech company.

About Third Prime:

Third Prime is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on financial and industrial technology. The firm leverages its partners’ extensive experience as public and private market investors to provide strategic and financial guidance to world-class entrepreneurs at the earliest stages. Third Prime builds concentrated portfolios behind high-conviction themes and works closely with its portfolio founders to optimize outcomes throughout the investment lifecycle.

MEDIA CONTACT: Jaime McDougall, [email protected], 857-999-5196

SOURCE Salt Labs, Inc.

The company integrates AI and ergonomics to advance workplace safety innovation 

SAN MATEO, Calif., Dec. 19, 2023 — TuMeke, a computer vision platform that automatically assesses injury risk in manufacturing facilities, raised $10M in a Series A funding round led by Intel Capital to expand and scale the TuMeke team of engineers, ergonomists, and academics.

“Workplace musculoskeletal injuries are commonplace across industries, but keeping your workers safe should be a non-negotiable,” said Riley Noland, co-founder of TuMeke. “We created TuMeke to arm businesses with a tool that efficiently, affordably and ethically improves the safety of employees.”

TuMeke believes keeping workers safe should be easy and cost-effective. Without TuMeke safety staff are required to spend hours filling out tedious forms. By using TuMeke, safety staff can take a video on their smartphone to reduce the identified risk of a job in minutes. Its AI system combines the best in computer vision and ergonomics to help its users redesign jobs or retrain workers. The TuMeke software is packaged within a phone app, so users never need to purchase equipment, cameras, or exoskeletons.

TuMeke’s advanced computer vision means all this can be done without stopping production – catapulting TuMeke to be the standard tool in the US workers’ compensation insurance industry and among the world’s largest industrial firms.

“The traditional ergonomic risk assessment process is manual, laborious and inefficient,” said Zach Noland, co-founder of TuMeke. “By using AI and computer vision, we’re able to surface concerns and suggest corrections quickly, saving time and, more importantly, keeping workers safe.”

Its suite of products helps companies assess ergonomic risk twelve times faster than traditional techniques, driving forward its mission of eliminating workplace musculoskeletal injury as the company continues to build the next-generation ergonomic risk assessment platform.

“TuMeke launched its offering in 2021 and in less than two years they’ve introduced a comprehensive solution that sustains workplace productivity and reduces employee injuries,” said Mark Rostick, Vice President and Senior Managing Director at Intel Capital. “Their digitally precise technology helps organizations maximize the ROI ‍of safety investments and has proven its ability to make occupational environments safer and more efficient.”

TuMeke has become a key partner in manufacturing, empowering industry powerhouses such as AF Group, Chemtrade Logistics, Sentry Insurance, and more to prioritize ergonomic safety and establish a resilient workforce. With employee health at the center of company decisions and technology designs, the product offers swift and accurate ergonomic risk assessments without the need for wearables or extra equipment, emphasizing efficiency and user comfort.

“Tumeke’s platform is an outstanding tool for conducting ergonomic assessments in a timely and accurate manner, ” said Colin Welch, EHS Director, Governance, Quality and Reporting of Chemtrade Logistics, “It has not only improved our health and safety program by helping us identify and reduce ergonomic hazards, but also increased employee engagement by creating a positive and supportive work culture.”

TuMeke addresses immediate ergonomic concerns and assists in the development of long-term safety strategies, establishing employee well-being as a fundamental aspect of daily operations. The Series A funding will allow TuMeke to continue expanding operations and launch new features that enhance the capabilities of EHS teams and the safety of their colleagues.

“At TuMeke, we believe in leveraging AI for good – improving employee safety with consent and human-in-the-loop AI technology,” said Diwakar Ganesan, co-founder of TuMeke, “Our users say that employees for the first time are excited about safety training sessions and actively want to see how they can improve long term health outcomes.”

About TuMeke Ergonomics
TuMeke is on a mission to eliminate workplace musculoskeletal injuries. This next-generation ergonomic risk assessment platform has been created by a team of engineers, ergonomists, academics, and problem solvers that are striving to maximize the safety and sustainability of work environments in a cost-effective way.

SOURCE TuMeke, Inc.

Installed in just minutes, ScaleOps reduces companies’ cloud costs by up to 80%, fully automating production environments and freeing engineers from constant manual adjustments

TEL AVIV, Israel , Dec. 19, 2023 — ScaleOps, a startup specializing in cloud resource management, announced today $21.5M in funding for the first fully-automated cloud-native resource orchestration platform. The Seed and Series A funding rounds announced today were led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, NFX, and Glilot Capital Partners. ScaleOps has attracted a large and dedicated customer base of companies that use the platform to fully automate their production environments, achieving up to 80% cloud cost savings and delivering better-running applications.

As cloud-native and Kubernetes environments become increasingly dynamic and interconnected, managing them has become highly complex and tedious. Kubernetes’ native container sizing, scaling thresholds, and node type selection use static configurations, but consumption and demand are dynamic. Engineers spend precious time manually adjusting cloud resources to meet fluctuating demand — trying to avoid under or overprovisioning — resulting in millions of dollars wasted on idle resources or poor application performance issues during peak demand.

“In production environments, each container requires a different scaling strategy,” said Yodar Shafrir, ScaleOps’ co-founder and CEO. “Experienced engineers spend hours trying to predict demand, running load tests, and tweaking configuration files for every single container. It’s impossible to manage this at scale. We realized there’s a huge need for a context-aware platform that can optimize these constantly-changing environments automatically, adapting to changes in demand in real-time.”

ScaleOps is the first fully-automated platform that continuously optimizes and manages cloud-native resources during runtime. The platform is installed in just two minutes on any cloud provider, on-premises and in air-gapped environments.

ScaleOps ensures application scaling matches real-time demand. Instead of static allocations, it allocates resources dynamically, automatically rightsizing containers based on application needs. The platform also ensures every container runs in the most suitable node type, significantly cutting cloud costs.

“The only way to free engineers from ongoing, repetitive configurations and allow them to focus on what truly matters is by completely automating resource management down to the smallest building block: the single container,” added Shafrir. “By employing AI, the ScaleOps platform is  context-aware and autonomously handles resource management for engineers, lowering infrastructure costs and delivering better performance.”

ScaleOps was co-founded by Yodar Shafrir (CEO), and Guy Baron (CTO). Since its founding in 2022, ScaleOps has experienced rapid growth worldwide, and today it automatically manages the production environments of industry leaders like Wiz, PayU, Orca Security, At-Bay, RTL, OutBrain, Salt Security, Noname Security, and dozens more. The company will use the funding to fund its global expansion to the US and Europe.

“ScaleOps automatically optimizes Wiz’s workloads in production according to our real-time needs, improving performance even during demand spikes,” said Ron Tzrouya, Lead Cloud FinOps at Wiz. “While dramatically reducing our Kubernetes cloud costs, the hands-free automation freed our teams from dealing with ongoing configurations, which is critical in our rapidly ever-growing environment.”

About ScaleOps

ScaleOps, a Tel Aviv based startup, is on a mission to automate the management of cloud environments, enabling organizations to focus on their core business objectives and dramatically reduce cloud costs. ScaleOps is backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, NFX, Glilot Capital Partners, and other leading investors.

Learn more at https://scaleops.com/

Media Contat
Lazer Cohen
347-753-8256
[email protected]

SOURCE ScaleOps

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 19, 2023 — Iris&Romeo (“IRIS&ROMEO” or the “Company”), a clean beauty brand based in Northern California, has announced a retail expansion into Sephora (“Sephora”), in conjunction with a Series A partnership backed by US-based investment firm, True Beauty Ventures (“True Beauty”), a beauty and wellness dedicated emerging growth fund.

Since 2019, Iris&Romeo has become highly-recognized as a leading innovative, clean, skincare-makeup hybrid brand and is committed to thoughtful, multi-functional hero products for the beauty minimalist. The brand believes in modern essentialism, creating tinted skincare with serum-strength actives, designed to create more time for self care and less waste for the planet.

In conjunction with the Series A announcement, Iris&Romeo’s hero essentials will launch on  Sephora.com on December 26th, including the award-winning Weekend Skin SPF 50  and cult-favorite Best Skin Days™.

“Launching at Sephora is a pivotal moment for our brand. It gives us an opportunity to tell our story on a bigger level and for a whole new group of customers to try our products and fall in love,” expressed Michele Gough-Baril, the Company’s founder, “for me personally, it’s a dream come true moment because I’ve worked with Sephora for many years on other brands, and to do it now with the brand I founded is beyond exciting.”

“We’re thrilled to introduce Iris&Romeo to our clients as a part of our growing clean makeup assortment,” said Amy Abrams, VP Merchandising, Makeup at Sephora, “with its minimalist and simplified approach to beauty, Iris&Romeo offers multi-use products that are clean, high-performing, and seek to improve skin’s wellness with every wear. We look forward to introducing this innovative brand to our Sephora community and know that it will be a great addition to our assortment.”

The Company plans to use capital to improve retail readiness through supply chain sufficiencies, elevating brand-first content, and securing key hires to complement its current best-in-class team.

“We are thrilled to bring on True Beauty Ventures as our Series A lead. Rich and Cristina’s  expertise in the early stage beauty space is unparalleled. Having Cristina on our board will be incredibly valuable as we scale,”  Tara Desai, the Company’s CEO commented, “This Series A funding will unlock the brand’s ability to reach more consumers. Our existing customer base is exceptionally loyal. Strengthening our ability to reach her in more places will accelerate our growth, especially within our 35+ demographic.” Tara Desai joined Iris&Romeo in 2022, after working for brands such as Estee Lauder and Marc Jacobs.

“After three years of building a strong relationship with Iris&Romeo, we are thrilled to announce our lead Series A investment,” said Cristina Nunez, Co-Founder and Partner at True Beauty Ventures . “The brand is at a major inflection point driven by excellent product development, strong consumer demand, and an industry tailwind of multi-functional makeup-skincare hybrids. We are excited to support Iris&Romeo in this next phase of growth.”

ABOUT IRIS&ROMEO
Iris&Romeo was founded by Michele Gough-Baril after two decades in the beauty industry, climbing her way to the top. Burned out by the persistent excess and hustle culture, she stepped away to the healing rhythms of Northern California and gave herself permission to reprioritize her relationship with her body and herself. Iris&Romeo was born as the antidote to the beauty hustle culture and the more is more mentality. At Iris&Romeo, products are brought into the world thoughtfully, consciously, and beautifully. We are committed to multi-functional, all-in-one, tinted skincare solutions of the highest quality and efficacy.  We simplify your morning routine and deliver skin wellness—instantly and over time. This kind of beauty—this undone, well-hydrated look combined with serum strength actives—is the effortless bare-faced beauty we all want. Less makeup. More you.

ABOUT TRUE BEAUTY VENTURES
True Beauty Ventures is a beauty & wellness dedicated emerging growth fund that was created to provide not just capital to indie brands in the space, but also true partnership and sector expertise. We leverage decades of beauty-focused institutional investment experience, first-hand operating expertise, and extensive industry insider networks to help businesses scale into successful, resilient, and long-lasting beauty brands.

ABOUT SEPHORA
Since its debut in North America 25 years ago, Sephora has been a leader in prestige omni-retail with the mission of creating an inviting beauty shopping experience and inspiring fearlessness in our community. With the goal of delivering unbiased shopping support and a personalized experience, Sephora invites clients to discover thousands of products from more than 360 carefully curated brands, explore online and through our mobile app, enjoy services at the Beauty Studio and engage with expertly trained Beauty Advisors in more than 600 stores across the Americas. And with its long-term strategic partnerships with Kohl’s, customers can now shop a fully immersive, premium beauty destination, with over 850 locations nationwide. Clients can access the free-to-join Beauty Insider program and digital community, which together enhance the experience of Sephora’s passionate clients.

Sephora has been an industry-leading champion of diversity, inclusivity, and empowerment, guided by our longstanding company values. In 2019, Sephora announced a new tagline and manifesto, “We Belong to Something Beautiful,” to reinforce its dedication to fostering belonging amongst all clients and employees and to publicly strive for a more inclusive vision for retail in the Americas. Sephora continues to give back to our communities and advance inclusion in our industry through its social impact and equity programming, called the Sephora D&I Heart Journey.

For more information, visit: https://www.sephora.com/about-us and @Sephora on social media. For media inquiries, please visit our Sephora Newsroom or email [email protected].

Contact: Image and Interview Requests: [email protected] 

SOURCE Iris&Romeo

SimSpace has developed government-grade cyber ranges since 2015 and is uniquely positioned to capitalize on a 2030 cybersecurity market set to top $480 billion.

BOSTON, Dec. 19, 2023 — SimSpace, a US-based market leader in military-grade cybersecurity, today announced that it has closed a $45 million equity raise led by L₂ Point Management, a private investment firm specializing in flexible capital solutions for growth companies. This investment brings the total capital raised by SimSpace over the past year to $70 million and will support the company’s continued growth trajectory, including its expansion into new geographies.

SimSpace works with the most advanced Fortune 2000 companies, as well as national and state governments, to provide unmatched training and stress-testing capabilities for their defensive tools and cyber teams. In 2024, organizations worldwide are set to suffer $9.5 trillion in financial damages from cyber-attacks, as regulators and insurers increase their pressure on the disclosure and Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) requirements of mission critical companies. In a climate of heightened cyber threats, SimSpace is uniquely equipped to help public and private entities withstand the most sophisticated cyber-attacks that are now transcending geographical borders.

“For nearly a decade, SimSpace’s ground-breaking technologies have allowed large financial institutions and critical national infrastructure companies to withstand and recover from the most severe cyber events imaginable. The exponential growth in cyber threats has underlined the necessity for the boards and c-suites of large and listed organizations to implement national-grade cybersecurity to mitigate threats and ensure bottom line growth,” said William “Hutch” Hutchison, CEO of SimSpace. “The $45 million investment from L₂ Point Management will serve as a milestone of growth at SimSpace, bolstering our ambitions to enter new markets around the world while allowing us to significantly accelerate the pace of our customer acquisition.”

“SimSpace’s high-fidelity cyber ranges have gained significant traction with leading companies and national cyber defense organizations. This financing will allow SimSpace to build on its strong momentum and continue to invest in its military-grade capabilities as the company serves an increasingly diverse and advanced customer base,” said Kerstin Dittmar, Managing Partner at L₂ Point Management. “We are excited to support Hutch and his talented team as they position SimSpace as a global leader in a potential $480 billion cybersecurity market.”

SimSpace’s Cyber Force Platform provides granular, data-driven performance metrics that give CFOs multi-million dollar answers to cost reduction decisions without increasing top line risk. The metrics-led data will also allow disclosure teams to practice their roles in severe incident response and security teams to keep their capabilities sharp for the day when they will need to outperform the adversaries intent on inflicting critical damage to the reputation and finances of large and listed companies.

About SimSpace

SimSpace is the global leader in military-grade cyber ranges, founded by experts from U.S. Cyber Command and MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory to respond to a new era of unprecedented cyber threats. The company’s Cyber Force Platform enables the most sophisticated enterprises, governments, and critical national infrastructure organizations to find intelligence-driven answers to the most vexing security, governance, training, and cyber readiness questions. SimSpace’s Cyber Force Platform results in an average reduction in cyber operational costs of 30% and a 40% reduction in breaches. For more information, please visit: www.SimSpace.com.

About L₂ Point Management

L₂ Point Management (“L₂ Point”) is a San Francisco based investment firm providing innovative capital solutions for growth companies. With expertise across the capital structure, L₂ Point works to address a common concern of late-stage companies today: the lack of an alternative cost of capital product between highly dilutive growth equity and operationally restrictive debt. For more information, please visit: www.L2-Point.com. 

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SOURCE SimSpace