Blackstone Circles L'Occitane, Beyoncé Launching Cécred on Feb 20th 👀

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

• HighKey Snacks acquired 🍪

• Lost Woods Whiskey scores funding 🥃

• Encore closes Fund IV 📈

• Coty partners with Marni 👜

• S’NOODS debuts 🍝

Deals 💰

Mergers & Acquisitions 

• Private equity giant Blackstone is reportedly considering a bid for L’Occitane Group, the global cosmetics firm that’s listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and valued around $5B. L’Occitane Group might not seem like the most exciting beauty firm due to its namesake brand, but they own a stable of fast-growing brands like Sol de Janeiro, ELEMIS, and Grown Alchemist. During their most recent quarter, revenue jumped 19.5% to €843M, while Sol de Janeiro sales surged nearly 200%. Business of Fashion

• Better-for-you snack manufacturer Creations Foods acquired HighKey for an undisclosed sum. HighKey launched in 2018 and is best known for its keto-friendly cookies and crackers. Early last year, Creations Foods acquired Moon Cheese. Just Food

• Sexual wellness brand Dame is acquiring Emojibator, a seller of emoji-shaped sex toys, for an undisclosed sum. The two companies are joining forces in order to benefit from shared warehousing and manufacturing. Glossy

Fundraising

• Lost Woods Whiskey, a Minnesota-based producer of single malt whiskeys, secured an undisclosed amount of funding from CoPeace PBC. Lost Woods was founded in 2018 by Tom Schaeppi. The American whiskey category has been on such a heater. Twitter

• Consumer-focused private equity firm Encore Consumer Capital raised $258M for Fund IV. The San Francisco-based firm was founded in 2005 and has invested in companies like Brownie Brittle, Love Wellness, and Supergoop. Encore 

• Minu, a brand that’s combining mineral sunscreen with skincare ingredients, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from XRC Ventures, Selva Ventures, and others. Beauty Independent 

Sales tax isn’t everyone’s cup of tea 📠

Shark Tank brand The Woobles tried managing sales tax themselves. While it was fine early on, they grew faster than ever, and soon Adrian (their co-founder) was wasting dozens of hours on spreadsheets, trying to figure out sales tax.

They tried using Avalara but it fell short as well. That’s when they switched to Numeral and haven’t looked back since.

Read the full store here.

What’s New 🤩

Apparel, Cosmetics, and Wellness

• Details are scarce but Beyoncé is launching her haircare brand, Cécred, on Tuesday, February 20th. Beyoncé first announced that she was entering the haircare category in May of 2023, so the brand has been in the works for some time. Fortunes are being made in celebrity haircare. Priyanka Chopra’s masstige brand, Anomaly Haircare, exceeded $500M in sales in year two. Business of Fashion

• Global beauty firm Coty announced a new licensing agreement with Marni, the Italian luxury fashion brand. The agreement, which will last beyond 2040, enables Coty to develop and market fragrances and beauty products under the Marni brand. Coty

• Granado, a Brazilian luxury fragrance brand that was founded in 1870, opened its first-ever store in the U.S. The stunning new store is located on Madison Ave in NYC. This is their seventh international store. Town & Country

• On Tuesday we mentioned that scalp care brand Act + Acre was launching a new product. Surprisingly the new product isn’t another beauty product but rather a hardware product. Introducing Act + Acre’s beautiful new showerhead filter. Glossy

• Francisco Costa is relaunching Costa Brazil, the fragrance brand he founded in 2018 and sold to Amyris in 2021. Francisco Costa repurchased the brand after Amyris filed for bankruptcy protection last year. WWD

Food, Beverage, and Alcohol

• It appears that JuneShine, the beverage brand that’s best known for its canned cocktails and hard kombuchas, is expanding into non-alcoholic beverages. Twitter

• Bulleit, the whiskey brand owned by Diageo, has officially entered the fast-growing American single malt whiskey category. PR Newswire

• S’NOODS, a globally-inspired noodle snack brand, debuted yesterday. The company was founded by Lauryn Bodden who won Snack vs Chef, a cooking competition on Netflix, in 2022. The flavors — Cavatappi Carbonara, Spicy Miso Ramen, and Rigatoni Basil Pomodoro — sound incredible. NOSH

• Pernod Ricard launched a new line of ready-to-serve cocktails under the Absolut brand. Two flavors are available: Vodka Mojito and Raspberry Lemonade. The RTS bottles look pretty good IMO. BevNET

• Diageo also launched a new line of on-the-go cocktails, Smirnoff SMASH Vodka Soda, which is available in four flavors. This is the first-ever RTD vodka soda from Smirnoff. PR Newswire

• Pretty Tasty, the new RTD collagen tea brand, launched their line of collagen stick packs. Love the packaging. Instagram

Data 🖥️

• e.l.f. Beauty delivered another monster quarter. Net sales increased 85% to $270.9M while gross margin increased 350 bps to 71%. They also posted net income of $26.9M and closed the acquisition of Naturium, the skincare brand they purchased for $333M. CNBC

Distribution News 🚚

• British skincare brand ELEMIS is launching at Sephora in the U.S.

• Jones Soda Co. will launch their cannabis-infused soda, Mary Jones, in Canada.

• VYBES launched their energy line at select Equinox locations.