LYS Beauty, a Kennesaw-based cosmetics company, has received an eight-figure investment, the company announced Monday.
California-based Encore Consumer Capital is investing at least $10 million in the brand. Tisha Thompson, LYS Beauty’s founder and CEO, declined to disclose the exact amount, but said for her the investment wasn’t just about the money but “who can really, truly come in and help scale us to the next level.”
Encore has previously invested in major beauty brands like Supergoop! and Tarte Cosmetics.
Thompson founded LYS Beauty, which stands for “Love Yourself,” because she wanted to create a brand with products that are good for your skin, performed well and promoted self-care instead of making people feel like they needed to change who they are.
“We wanted to really more so remind people to love who you are and be your most unapologetic self,” Thompson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Sephora shoppers and TikTok users have probably seen LYS Beauty’s distinctive triangle packaging and affirming product names like No Limits cream bronzer stick and Speak Love lip balm.
It is one of the top 20 personal care brands sold on TikTok Shop and is stocked in every Sephora store in the U.S., Canada and Australia, as well as nearly 900 Sephora at Kohl’s stores, according to Thompson. LYS was once sold in Sephora stores in the U.K. and soon will again, Thompson said.
Before she even debuted the brand, she had a deal with Sephora. LYS Beauty launched online Feb. 14, 2021, and just one week later was in the beauty retailer’s stores.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
It’s rare for an independent brand to make its debut in Sephora, let alone a Black-owned brand, but Thompson has been in the beauty industry for decades. She worked her way from the accounting department of a beauty brand all the way to vice president of marketing and innovation for PÜR Beauty before leaving to start LYS Beauty.
She’d been toying with the idea of starting her own brand since about 2015, but it wasn’t until she lost her father in 2019 that she got a “good swift kick in the butt,” Thompson explained.
“It said, ‘Listen, follow your heart. Do what you need to do,‘” she said.
LYS Beauty is the first Black-owned clean makeup brand to debut in Sephora, meaning its products are made without ingredients like phthalates, parabens, sulfates and mineral oils.
Besides some early angel investments, Thompson has bootstrapped the business since its founding, in part from an inheritance from her father. This investment is her first time receiving institutional venture capital.
Thompson did not disclose specific sales figures but said LYS Beauty is profitable. She plans to use the new funding to scale across a few main areas: increase inventory to keep up with LYS Beauty’s demand, expand the leadership team, increase marketing efforts and hire sales representatives across the U.S. and international employees to help support the brand’s global growth.
The company currently has 20 employees, having hired in recent weeks. Thompson estimates the team will add an additional 10 to 15 new staff members by the end of the year.
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