Exclusive: How Huda Beauty Will Expand After Landing Major Investment Deal
The power of the influencer is growing — especially in beauty.
While industry insiders are talking about Huda Beauty’s milestone deal announced today, Huda Kattan is aggressively strategizing her business expansion.
“She’s actually an influencer who has developed wholesale accounts as well, and I think a lot of influencers have in some ways, only done collaborations with existing brands or haven’t established a wholesale presence to compliment [direct-to-consumer],” TSG senior managing director Hadley Mullin said.
At just four years old, Huda Beauty received a minority investment from private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners, which has backed brands like Smashbox and It Cosmetics. The deal is expected to support the brand’s product, retail and geographic expansion.
“There’s so much more we want to do right now,” Kattan said. “We have so much more to do for Huda Beauty — we’re not in a lot of places, we’ve only hit 40 Sephora doors in the U.S. and our productivity is really high. We want to go into more Sephora doors — that’s really important. We’re not going to be in every single store, that’s never our goal, but we want to be in more places and more accessible.”
Huda Beauty is in the process of tackling the U.S. market, where it started a major rollout earlier this year. Going forward, the brand is planning continued international expansion and is considering Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries, Kattan said, noting certain places are off limits for now because of animal testing requirements. In addition to Sephora, Huda Beauty is sold at Harrods, Selfridges, Cult Beauty and shophudabeauty.com, though Kattan noted the majority of the brand’s sales come from retail distribution.
The brand’s product development strategy is going to remain the same, according to Kattan. She’s always been heavily involved — insisting to the lab that the company’s foundation formula include dimethicone, also an ingredient in Vagisil, for example. With TSG, Huda Beauty is set to continue to expand its product assortment.
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