BIC Buys Tangle Teezer, Houseplant Expands Into Beverage 🍹

GM and Happy Saturday, folks. Here’s what we’re covering this morning:

• Figs receives takeover offer 🩺

• BuzzFeed sells Hot Ones 🌶️

• Sephora unveils accelerator cohort 💄

• Spritz Society x V8 collab 🍅

• Fazit heads to CVS 📈

BIC Buys Tangle Teezer 🪮

BIC has agreed to acquire Tangle Teezer, a UK-based purveyor of patented hairbrushes, for a total consideration of $210M. The seller is Mayfair Equity Partners who acquired a majority stake in Tangle Teezer in 2021.

Tangle Teezer was founded in 2007 by Shaun Pulfrey, a hair colorist with decades of experience at high-end salons across London. Pulfrey combined his experience in the haircare industry with months of studying plastic molding and patents. The end result was the Tangle Teezer Original, a product that soon went viral due to its ability to quickly and effortlessly detangle hair.

Pulfrey started Tangle Teezer in his apartment with £98,000 in savings and quite a bit of chutzpah. One thing that stands out about Pulfey’s entrepreneurial journey is how focused he was on protecting his novel hairbrush design. While most consumer entrepreneurs spend their early-stage capital on inventory, Pulfrey spent much of that £98,000 in savings on patent attorneys and patent filings.

Once his intellectual property was protected, Pulfrey remortgaged his apartment and sunk that cash into production. The journey was not without bumps, though. Tangle Teezer was an early participant on BBC’s Dragon’s Den, the UK’s equivalent of Shark Tank, and the judges laughed Pulfrey off the stage and he left empty handed. 

Despite leaving empty handed, Dragon’s Den was a free 15-minute commercial for Tangle Teezer, and their website subsequently crashed due to surging traffic. From there, Tangle Teezer launched storewide at Boot’s and other UK-based retailers, then it became a haircare essential for celebrities like Kate Moss, Selena Gomez, Victoria Beckham, and many others. 

Today, Tangle Teezer is sold in over 75 countries and the company expects to finish 2024 with net sales of €70M, up from around €50M in 2022.

For BIC, which did north of €2.2B in revenue in 2023, acquiring Tangle Teezer for $210M is a no-brainer. BIC is essentially paying 2.85x net sales for a fast-growing, profitable brand that gives them much greater exposure to the beauty market. Drew Fallon did a great deep dive on the acquisition here.

Somewhere out there, a private equity firm or a strategic is kicking themselves for not getting Tangle Teezer for 2.85x net sales.

Deals 💰

Mergers & Acquisitions 

• Medical apparel maker Figs received a takeover offer from Story3 Capital Partners that values the biz at $1B. Figs went public in 2021 at an initial valuation of $4.5B, but the pandemic darling’s valuation dropped to less than $1B due to slowing sales and decreasing profitability. Despite their recent struggles, Figs is still a great brand, and I reckon they’re worth more than $1B. WSJ

• Golden Grail Beverages scooped up UPDC Beverages, a beverage co-packer with a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Naples, Florida. UPDC is profitable and specializes in filling energy drinks, carbonated beverages, and functional beverages of all sizes. GlobeNewswire

• BuzzFeed agreed to sell First We Feast, the studio behind hit YouTube series Hot Ones, for $82.5M. Buyers include Chris Schonberger, Sean Evans, Crooked Media, Soros Fund Management, and others. In addition to having 14 million subscribers, Hot Ones also sells a wide variety of products like hot sauce and co-branded ramen. CNBC

• Platinum Equity completed its acquisition of Polli, an Italian manufacturer of pasta sauces and vegetable preserves. Polli produces more than 190 million packages every year. PR Newswire

Fundraising

• One Bio, a biotech startup that produces a concentrated, tasteless fiber that can be easily incorporated into food & beverage products, raised $27M in Series A funding. The round was led by AlphaEdison, with additional funding from Leaps by Bayer, E12 Ventures, Morado Ventures, and others. AgFunder

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What’s New 🤩

Apparel, Cosmetics, and Wellness

• Chanel has announced Matthieu Blazy as its next Creative Director. Blazy is stepping down as the Creative Director of Bottega Veneta to take the Chanel gig. Culted

• Sephora announced the eight BIPOC-founded brands participating in its 2025 accelerator program. Participating brands include OLIVIAUMMA (Korean skincare), Bounce Curl (textured haircare), The Potion Studio (luxury haircare), Tonal Cosmetics (SPF makeup), Influxious (fragrance), Ruhveda (Ayurvedic fragrance), and The Steam Bar (haircare). Happi

• My pal Marc Roeger officially launched acitura, an Italian menswear brand. Their debut product is a cashmere All Day Sweater made by a family-owned producer in Italy. It’s a beauty. acitura 

• Commune, a UK-based sustainable self care brand, expanded into the home fragrance category with six candles. The candles are crafted with soy, beeswax, and natural essential oils. The Industry

Food, Beverage, and Alcohol

• Houseplant, the cannabis lifestyle brand co-founded by Seth Rogen, expanded into beverage with a new line of THC-infused sparkling waters. The beverage is available in four flavors and a 4-pack retails for $19.99. Consumers can currently find Houseplant at Total Wine & More. Curious what y’all think of the branding 👇 PR Newswire

• General Mills is bringing more protein to the cereal aisle with Cheerios Protein. Cheerios Protein is available in two flavors — Strawberry and Cinnamon — and each serving contains 8g of protein. Earlier this year, General Mills launched Wheaties Protein and a licensed protein cereal with lifestyle brand GHOST. Business Wire

• Spritz Society, a purveyor of sparkling canned cocktails, partnered with V8 to release a Bloody Mary Spritz. The collab is currently available online and will hit select retail shelves in 2025. The packaging is actually quite good. PR Newswire

• Newport Beach-based DryWater is a newish player in the very crowded hydration supplement category. The brand differentiates by using real fruit instead of artificial flavors and added sugar. The Spindrift of hydration supplements, if you will. BevNET

• Sunny Fine Foods dropped a pretty terrific packaging refresh. The changes might seem modest at first, but the latest iteration is a lot more legible and should move the needle in retail. LinkedIn

• Coca-Cola and Pepsi are both preparing to enter the fast-growing prebiotic soda category in 2025. Coca-Cola’s brand, Simply Pop, actually looks pretty good. BevNET

• Quinn Snacks launched a really clever new product — PB & J Pretzel Nuggets. Instagram

Data 🖥️

• Kanpai Foodz is experiencing the holiday sales bump at Target. Sales were up 4x last week. Twitter

• U.S. retailers announced more than 7,100 store closures through the end of November, up 69% from the same time last year. A total of 45 retailers filed for bankruptcy protection so far this year, compared with 25 for all of last year. CBS News

Distribution News 🚚

• Viral beauty brand Fazit launched at CVS.

• Cazcanes Tequila is now available in Dubai.

• Organic breakfast bar brand Olyra launched at Wegmans.

• Koia launched their 18-packs at Costco.

• RECOVER 180 is now available at H-E-B.