Halifax’s Skinfix Secures Major Investment
HALIFAX—Halifax beauty company Skinfix has secured investment from a big name in the beauty world; Stride Consumer Partners has announced a minority investment in the company.
The deal is the first investment from the new private equity firm, which was started by a former team from Castanea Partners. Castanea is known for investing in and exiting with well-known beauty brands like Urban Decay, First Aid Beauty, and Tatcha.
The terms of the investment were not disclosed but the news comes as Skinfix is in the middle of a massive growth year. According to CEO Amy Gordinier, the company has grown by 300 percent in 2021, compared to last year.
In an interview with Huddle, Gordinier said she’s thrilled to “bring an investor to the table that has deep beauty experience” and put Skinfix in a position to scale even more quickly.
From Kitchen Table To Sephora
Gordinier founded Skinfix in 2014, after meeting the great-great-granddaughter of an English pharmacist. The woman, Karen Warren, was using a 150-year-old formula to make a skin balm in her kitchen.
Gordinier rebranded the balm and helped Skinfix expand into a host of products like its Barrier+ Triple Lipid-Peptide line and Resurface+ line.
In 2019, the company officially launched in Sephora and quickly became one of the beauty giant’s best-selling skincare brands.
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Gordinier says that journey makes Skinfix a fitting first investment for Stride.
“Some of these folks, through Castena, invested and exited some big names in the beauty industry. So, they have really good experience in scaling brands of this size and recognizing brands that have a lot of potential,” she said.
Gordinier says she’s excited to draw from Stride’s experienced team to help scale and market Skinfix.
She said Sephora will remain Skinfix’s primary customer and focus but that she sees a big opportunity in the direct-to-consumer market.
“Just investing a little bit of money and effort into our DTC we’ve almost tripled it year on year, so there’s tremendous potential with our DTC business that just requires an investment,” she said.
Along with more focus on its DTC market, Gordinier said Skinfix will also enter a new product category in January when it launches a line of acne products.
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Building A Global Brand From Atlantic Canada Is Possible
Gordinier said Skinfix’s quick growth, and the interest it has attracted from big-name investors like Stride, is proof that an Atlantic Canadian company can compete on the global stage.
“These folks are in beauty and private equity and consumer private equity in the US, and seeing hundreds of opportunities. And they chose Skinfix as their first and only investment so far—and their processes is pretty rigorous,” she said.
“I think it’s exciting for the region, and for aspiring entrepreneurs, and I think it just sort of reinforces that we need to think globally and consider ourselves worthy of attention.”
She encouraged other Nova Scotian companies to “think outside of Canada.”
“Hopefully [what we’ve done] helps to inspire people to think big and to go for it,” she said.