17 US VC firms investing in beauty and skincare

In 2021, the beauty industry hit a new high-water mark, reaching a wow-worthy 388 deals and $3.3 billion in venture capital raised. Since then, VC investments into beauty startups have tapered—with just 93 deals and $438.8 million raised through the first seven months of 2024. Still, the beauty space continues to resonate with consumers, which means companies within the industry have investors’ attention, too.

In this article, we’ll take a look at the beauty industry landscape, quick stats from the PitchBook Platform, and top US VC firms investing in beauty and skincare.

How does PitchBook define the beauty vertical?

PitchBook tracks hundreds of industry verticals—beauty is among them. Here’s how we define the space: “This vertical encompasses beauty companies who are incorporating digital technologies into their products or services, providing bespoke products that target a niche group of users, or are manufacturing and marketing their products as natural, clean, and organic.”

Beauty industry quick stats*

*According to PitchBook as of July 18, 2024; data is subject to change frequently

Total investments in beauty since 2015

How has the beauty industry landscape evolved?

A few trends that have and continue to drive change across the beauty landscape include:

The rise of shopping via social

The beauty space of yesteryear consisted of mostly brick-and-mortar retailers controlled by a handful of manufacturers. Today, ecommerce businesses dominate the landscape with their products being sold directly to consumers. This evolution was spurred by the rise of online shopping, and more specifically, social media’s growing role in facilitating sales. Despite this shift, PitchBook News recently reported that direct-to-consumer players in beauty have been facing more challenges as they depend on digital advertising, which has become less efficient over time.

Consumers’ diversity—acknowledged and celebrated

The whitewashed beauty industry of the past persists, but brands across the vertical (and many others) have begun to acknowledge, include, and celebrate the diversity of their customer base. Especially in the startup landscape, more skin tones, shades, and textures than ever are being highlighted in US-based beauty brands’ marketing efforts. For example, Live Tinted—mentioned in our list below—offers, “universal shades… that celebrate all complexions.”

Health and wellness front and center

Consumer demand has paved the way for an increase in sustainable, cruelty-free, natural, and organic beauty-centered product lines. Startups that have responded to the growing prevalence of health and sustainability as a lifestyle and personal value include Flora & Noor, Eadem, and Ignae. Companies like Prose and Scentbird are meeting the demand for more personalized fragrances, skincare, and makeup products tailored to meet individual consumer needs and preferences. Subscription-based beauty boxes like Ipsy, Birchbox, and Beauty Pie continue to flourish, too.

Top 17 VC firms investing in beauty and skincare by number of investments (2019-2024)

The US-based VC firms highlighted below have invested the most in beauty brands over the last five years, from 2019 through present, as of July 8, 2024. In performing a PitchBook Platform search, our clients can use the Companies & Deals Screener, then select “VC-backed companies” from the dropdown menu to see the same data. For this article, we’ve set the Investor Type to “Venture Capital” and selected “Only search primary type”. We’ve narrowed the investors’ headquarters to US only and used the beauty vertical as our final parameter.

Note that PitchBook’s data is dynamic, especially in the case of the fast-moving venture capital ecosystems. The information below is subject to change often, with new investments and deals data added daily. The information below represents a snapshot in time and will become outdated as new data becomes available.

1. Gaingels

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 14
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 16
🤑 AUM: N/A

Headquartered in Burlington, Vermont, Gaingels is a VC firm that invests in seed-to-growth/pre-IPO companies across the technology, B2B, healthcare, and consumer sectors. The firm’s most recent beauty investment was in Trendio, an AI-optimized video platform that provides users with a tailored list of recommended beauty products, in November 2023.

2. Joyance Partners

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 12
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 18
🤑 AUM: $120M

Founded in 2012, San Francisco’s Joyance Partners invests in early-stage companies across tech, healthtech, and mobile. In recent years, the firm has invested Luna Daily, a London-based manufacturer of microbiome-balancing body products. Joyance Partners has also made VC investments in Phyla, iota, Exponent Beauty, and others.

3. Alumni Ventures

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 11
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 14
🤑 AUM: $1B

Headquartered in Manchester, New Hampshire, Alumni Ventures is a VC firm that manages fund families that invest in a portfolio of companies diversified across sector, stage, and region and are led by other established venture firms. Within beauty, the firm has invested in Exponent Beauty, Bravo Sierra, and Seaspire Skincare. The largest beauty deal Alumni Ventures has participated in the past five years was in 2020—the $47 million Series B funding round of Thirty Madison, a company that builds condition-specific brands for skin-related issues, hair loss, and more.

4. Short List Capital

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 10
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 13
🤑 AUM: N/A

Based in San Francisco and founded in 2017, Short List Capital is a VC firm that invests in clean beauty, inclusive fashion, functional food, mental health and sustainability, tech, SaaS, and blockchain. The firm has invested in well-known beauty, skincare, and wellness brands including Fig. 1, Kosas, Moon Juice, Saie, Kari Gran, and Goop.

5. Concept to Co

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 9
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 12
🤑 AUM: N/A

Founded in 2014, Concept to Co is a New York City-based venture capital firm that invests across skincare, haircare, beauty, wellness, and personal care, among other verticals. Most recently within the beauty space, the firm invested in Hawthorne’s $12 million later-stage VC round in 2021. That startup provides luxury aesthetic care through their colognes, deodorants, and haircare and skincare products—all served up to customers via an algorithmic platform that identifies the ideal offerings for each person’s unique body chemistry, skin type, lifestyle, and other factors.

6. Greycroft

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 9
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 15
🤑 AUM: $4.6B

Greycroft is a venture capital firm founded in 2006 and headquartered in the Big Apple. The firm invests across a range of sectors, including consumer internet, fintech, and healthcare. On the beauty front, Greycroft most recently invested in the $3.5 million early-stage VC round of skincare brand Mother Science in May 2024.

7. Imaginary Ventures

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 9
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 16
🤑 AUM: $1B

Founded in 2017, Imaginary Ventures is a New York-based venture capital firm that invests in retail and technology across the US and Europe. In June 2023, the firm invested in the seed round of Half Magic, a makeup and accessories brand that offers vegan and cruelty-free cosmetics—including eye paint, lip liners and creams, hair pins, eyebrow brushes, and more. Imaginary Ventures has also invested twice—most recently in July 2023—in GlossGenius, a software that helps beauty industry professionals manage appointments, track client histories, and streamline their calendars.

8. Redo Ventures

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 9
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 13
🤑 AUM: N/A

New York’s Redo Ventures was founded in 2017 with the goal of investing in consumer software tech, commerce, media, mobile, advertising, enterprise software tech, and more. The firm has invested in companies such as Ellis Brooklyn, Bravo Sierra, The Good Face Project, and Dieux.

9. Bessemer Venture Partners

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 8
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 12
🤑 AUM: $20B

Founded in 1911, Bessemer Venture Partners is a VC firm based in Redwood City, California. The firm invests in companies across AI and ML, biotech, fintech, healthcare, and more. Within the beauty category, they most recently invested in India’s The Good Glamm Group in March 2024—their fourth venture investment in the online beauty and grooming marketplace.

10. Fearless Fund

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 8
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 8
🤑 AUM: $25.8M

Atlanta’s Fearless Fund is a venture capital firm that invests in companies led by women of color, particularly pre-seed, seed, and Series A rounds. Some of the firm’s recent investments were in Detroit-based The Lip Bar, the maker of vegan, handcrafted lip bars enriched with shea butter, avocado oil, and coconut oil, and in Bread Beauty Supply, a Santa Monica, California startup that offers hair care products for women with naturally curly and oily hair.

11. Halogen Ventures

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 8
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 11
🤑 AUM: $62M

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Los Angeles, Halogen Ventures is a VC firm that invests in women-led consumer technologies companies based in the US. They prefer to invest in pre-seed, seed, and Series A rounds. Recently, Halogen Ventures invested in the $10 million early-stage VC round of Live Tinted, a vegan, cruelty-free, and fragrance-free beauty brand whose mission is to “change the beauty narrative and celebrate and unite beauty for all tinted skins.”

12. Precursor Ventures

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 8
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 11
🤑 AUM: N/A

Based in San Francisco, Precursor Ventures is a VC firm that prefers to invest in early-stage finance, technology, B2B, and B2C companies across North America. Beauty brands the firm has invested in include Lion Pose, a clinical skincare brand, and Naza, a beauty salon whose expert stylists are trained in the care, keeping, and conversations around coily, kinky, and afro-textured hair types.

13. Female Founders Fund

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 7
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 10
🤑 AUM: $95M

Founded in 2013, Female Founders Fund is a venture capital firm based in New York. The firm specializes in startups and early-stage investments and invests in women-led startups operating in ecommerce, IoT, marketplaces, and platforms. Before Greycroft invested in Mother Science’s early-stage VC deal in May 2024, Female Founders Fund was one of 14 investors to participate in the company’s seed round in February 2023. The firm has also invested PrismPop and RadSwan, among other beauty startups.

14. G9 Ventures

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 7
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 9
🤑 AUM: N/A

New York City’s G9 Ventures is a VC firm that invests in early-stage companies that “empower the consumer to live, look, and feel better”. Like Short List Capital, the firm has invested in both Kosas and Saie. Other beauty startups G9 Ventures has invested in include LA-based skincare brand Matter of Fact and New York City’s Starface World, developer of hydrocolloid acne stickers.

15. Tiger Global Management

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 7
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 12
🤑 AUM: $55.9B

Founded in 2001, Tiger Global Management is a New York-based VC firm that pursues a longer-term approach to investing in public and private companies around the world. The firm has invested twice in both Ever/Body, a beauty and cosmetic dermatology practice, and YatsenGlobal, a beauty, skincare, and cosmetic retailer.

16. VMG Partners

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 7
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 12
🤑 AUM: $2.9B

San Francisco’s VMG Partners is a VC firm that invests in seed-stage, early-stage, and later-stage companies across consumer products, beauty, personal care, and more. Within the beauty space, the firm most recently led the $5.65 million seed stage round of The Good Face Project alongside seven others (including the aforementioned Redo Ventures). VMG Partners has also invested in Rowan and Shani Darden Skin Care.

17. 500 Global

💅 Number of beauty investments (2019-2024): 6
🛍️ Number of beauty investments overall: 32
🤑 AUM: $2.3B

Founded in 2010, 500 Global—formerly called 500 Startups—is an accelerator and VC firm headquartered in San Francisco. Though there are several other US VC firms that invested in beauty startups six times over the last half decade, we’re including 500 Global because of their high number of overall investments in the space—32. Those investments include Public Goods, Althea, and Laka.