The Red Tree and SFC Capital teamed up and chose two start-ups – Faace, and Fussy – as winners of The Beauty Accelerator 2020 competition.
The winning brands will now both receive a £150,000 equity investment once financial evaluations and due diligence have reached completion. The winners will also enjoy the expertise of The Red Tree over the next year, as they take their brands ‘to the next stage’.
The Beauty Accelerator competition welcomed applications from independent UK brands across all categories of beauty. And, having received ‘an overwhelming number of high quality applicants’, the judges conducted interviews and short-listed six candidates for the final of the competition.
In the last stage, the finalists had to pitch their brands to the judges over a two-day period, in which, neither the Faace nor Fussy brands emerged as the clear winner.
Reflecting on The Beauty Accelerator Final, Stirling Murray, Managing Director of The Red Tree said: “The 6 Finalist brands were of an extremely high calibre and we congratulate and highly commend the runners up – Centred, Cutbox, Glaize and On Beaute – each of whom are strong brands with exciting futures. In a very competitive field, both Faace and Fussy were outstanding and could not be separated across our scoring categories”
“The founder of Faace, Jasmine Wicks-Stephens, has achieved so much in such little time, growing Faace to an impressive level, securing prestigious retail listings both in the UK and internationally, all the while juggling running a PR agency and being a mum to a toddler. We are looking forward to working with Jasmine to accelerate both her D2C and retail sales as well as supporting her on operational processes.”
“Fussy taps into an accelerating trend of refillable beauty products that reduce single use plastic consumption. We have seen similar brands succeed internationally and Fussy is carving its own way on this path. We are excited to be able to work with Matt Kennedy and Eddie Fisher to fine tune Fussy’s launch and its retail expansion strategy.”
Speaking on the result, both of the companies’ founders were thrilled to be receiving the prize money, and said that the support of The Red Tree and SFC Capital would help their businesses take important next steps.
Discussing the impact of The Beauty Accelerator, Stirling Murray concluded that: ”The strength of the Finalists, and the high calibre of the Winners, is testimony to the world class creativity, expertise and entrepreneurship in the British beauty industry. The intention of The Beauty Accelerator™ was to discover the next big thing in British beauty and with Faace and Fussy, we are confident that we have done so. We are delighted and excited to partner with them both on the next stage of their growth”.
