Unilever Ventures invests in haircare brand Straand

By

Sarah Ahssen

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Feb 7, 2023

Food and personal care giant Unilever continues to shop for brands in the beauty sector. Through its start-up investment programme called Unilever Ventures, the Dutch group has recently invested $2 million (€1.8 million) into newly-launched Australian haircare brand Straand. The investment was made two months after Unilever Ventures acquired a stake in Indonesian vegan cosmetics brand Esqa.

Straand was founded in July 2022 by Jeremy Hunt, Sarah Hamilton, also the co-founder of Australian skincare brand Sand & Sky, Tim Brown, Meagan Pate and Nick Morris. It commercialises Australian-made haircare products focused on microbiome balance (the microbiome consists of micro-organisms found on the entire surface of the human body). Straand notably features a small range of prebiotics-based products to fight scalp dryness.

Sold until now on its domestic market alone, Straand, bolstered by Unilever Ventures, is preparing, to enter the US market, before launching in the UK, Europe and China.

Ads

Unilever’s investment is further evidence of the buoyancy of the global haircare market, worth $80.8 billion in 2020 and expected to grow by 6.6% annually until 2028.

Unilever will welcome Hein Schumacher as its new CEO on July 1. In the first nine months of fiscal 2022, the group recorded a revenue of €45.6 billion, equivalent to a 16.1% increase. In the same period, the beauty and wellness segment grew by 21.9% to €9 billion, and the personal care segment reached €10.1 billion, up 16.4%.