PARIS — Clean makeup brand Ilia Beauty is being acquired by the Courtin-Clarins family holding company, Famille C, which also owns the Clarins brand.

Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

The move will give the holding a pioneer and leader within the burgeoning clean beauty category, which is anticipated to register significant growth in coming years.

Ten-year-old, Los Angeles-based Ilia is among the many buzziest beauty brands today. It was clean before clean was cool, and never wavered from founder Sasha Plavsic’s vision of making skin care-powered color cosmetics products gentle enough for reactive skin that may also provide long-term advantages. Her clearly outlined mission: to guard and revive skin.

Prisca Courtin, deputy chief executive officer of Famille C, contacted Ilia three years ago.

“It’s my role in Famille C to discover the brands of tomorrow and subsequently diversity the family’s assets,” she explained to WWD. “Ilia is Famille C’s first major and strategic acquisition. The thought is to make it the worldwide leader in clean color [cosmetics].”

Plavsic at all times kept her focus and lead — even while clean became more of an overall trend — with revamped branding, relevant products and a rebooted team.

Ilia’s hero product is the Super Serum Skin Tint, which has sold greater than 1 million units since its 2019 launch that transcended brands and channels, and helped the brand triple sales — from $30 million in 2019 to $100 million in 2021. One other bestseller is the Limitless Lash Mascara.

The corporate’s “motto for clean” includes using organic and natural bases, but sometimes including synthetics in formulations. Each product is checked out individually.

Within the U.S., Ilia kept a concentrate on its own site, which generates half its business, and on Sephora. The brand has tight distribution — altogether it’s in just a few hundred doors, including Credo, Space NK and Mecca, with which Ilia has been doing business for several years.

Ilia has built a loyal client base, with 70 percent of shoppers repurchasing inside 12 months.

The brand raised a Series B from Sandbridge Capital in January 2020, following a Series A led by Silas Capital that Ilia closed in late 2018. Silas also invested within the Series B.

Ilia was founded in 2011 by Plavsic and her brother, Zachary. They first skewed heavily toward the lip category but over time built out other core product lines.

Ilia in 2021 won the WWD Beauty Inc Award for Breakthrough Brand of the 12 months.

The brand is entrenched in a booming segment. In accordance with Brandessence Market Research released last yr, the worldwide clean beauty market’s sales were estimated to be $5.44 billion in 2020 and are expected to achieve $11.56 billion in 2027, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 12.07 percent.

Plavsic at all times kept an open mind about her company’s trajectory. She was quoted by WWD last yr as saying: “I really like what I do and I really like creating product. So it’s vital that in the future, should we elect to seek out a house that may accommodate a bigger strategy globally, that could have to be on the forefront to make sure there’s an actual partnership within the understanding of the brand.”

Clarins is that recent home.

There have been quite a few suitors for Ilia, but Courtins-Clarins said there have been many vital commonalities between her company and Plavsic’s.

“We share the identical values and had the identical desire to take Ilia much further,” said the chief, adding key to each, too, was keeping Plavsic and other company executives in place.

Each groups were began by families and are committed to sustainable development. (Groupe Clarins’ founder, Jacques Courtin-Clarins – Prisca Courtin-Clarins’ grandfather — was a pioneer in natural beauty products and practices starting within the Nineteen Fifties. Today, 85 percent of Clarins’ product formulations are natural.)

“We’re very careful within the sourcing of our ingredients, and it’s an important point for Ilia — also the product quality and efficacy,” continued Courtin-Clarins.

For Famille C, the acquisition of Ilia is a significant step, as amongst its goals is to advertise innovation in the sweetness and well-being spaces.

The holding has various activities: a enterprise branch that takes minority stakes in beauty brands and digital tools; a classical financial investment activity that has, for example, put funds into French unicorn Mirakl Marketplace, a marketplace platform; a heritage-related division, which invests in French art de vivre, and the mergers-and-acquisitions part.

Jonathan Zrihen, president and CEO of Groupe Clarins, described the acquisition of Ilia as being “in keeping with the ambitions of the Courtin-Clarins family: remaining on the cutting-edge to develop sustainable beauty for tomorrow.”

“Ilia is a tremendous brand managed by an incredible team,” he continued. “I’m truly convinced that this operation will enable Ilia to profit from each Famille C and Clarins expertise to further speed up and conquer recent territories.”

Within the recent past, Famille C has made a lot of investments and acquisitions. In April 2021 it made a $9 million Series B investment in Pai Skincare. That very same month it acquired for 75 million euros the Château Beauséjour, with 6.4 hectares of vine with Saint-Émilion premier grand cru Classe B status, in southwestern France.

The cope with Ilia is anticipated to shut in the primary half of this yr. Once it’s done, Famille C will own the bulk share of the brand, while Clarins will hold a minority stake, as will Plavskic and Lynda Berkowitz, the brand’s CEO.

Ilia is to maintain its autonomy, while being supported by Clarins. Plavsic and Berkowitz will remain at Ilia, together with their senior leadership team.

“We would like to construct bridges between Clarins and Ilia, and share good practices,” said Courtin-Clarins. “We would like to assist them at different levels — Clarins can really support them.”

That features Ilia’s international expansion, as Clarins has 152 subsidiaries in several geographic markets. “We might help them open up recent markets,” said the chief.

Clarins can aid Ilia with regulatory issues because it expands abroad. There will even be support from a research-and-development, packaging, formulation, and provide chain and logistics perspective.

“We would like to assist them find growth levers,” said Courtin-Clarins, explaining that can involve continuing to ascertain the brand within the U.S., then to develop it in Europe.

“With Clarins, we’re the [skin care] leader in Europe and we’ve this ease of access to markets, so we’ll give you the option to open the doors of European countries quite easily,” she said.

Latest categories — particularly skincare — could come next for Ilia.

“We expect there may be immense potential,” said Courtin-Clarins, of the brand overall. “It’s an organization that’s profitable. By 2025, we aim to triple Ilia’s value.”

She believes Ilia might be like slightly sister to Clarins. “It’s the primary, and I intend to develop other segments in complementary areas of beauty around Clarins,” said Courtin-Clarins.

Financo Raymond James was Famille C’s financial adviser and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and Villey-Girard-Grolleaud acted as its legal counsel.

Ilia’s financial advice got here from Goldman Sachs, while Sidley Austin LLP and Sideman & Bancroft LLP were the brand’s legal counsel.

For more, see:

Ilia’s Sasha Plavsic on Clean Makeup Branding

Clean Makeup Brand Ilia Raises Series B, Plots Further Growth

Clean Beauty Overindexes at Mass