Topicals, the skincare brand founded by Olamide Olowe in 2020, has added latest investors to its roster.

The brand closed a $10 million series A funding round led by Cavu Consumer Partners. That brings the brand’s total amount of funding to $15 million. Investors within the brand include Gabrielle Union, Kelly Rowland and Hannah Bronfman, amongst others.

Olowe sought to reinvent the ointment category, as she put it, and said the brand’s disciplined range of seven stock keeping units was resonating broadly. “We address the chronic skin condition market — things that you usually find in a Walgreens or CVS,” she said, adding that she goals to deal with skin concerns with a prestige flair. The brand’s success is “a testament to how badly this sort of product suite was needed,” Olowe said. 

Faded Serum for Dark Spots & Discoloration was the brand’s debut product, and its assortment also features a mask for sensitive skin, an ingrown hair tonic and an exfoliating body serum. Prices range from $18 to $34, depending on size. Topicals is sold at Sephora, where it claims to be the retailer’s fastest-growing beauty brand, and on the beauty brand’s website.

Though Olowe stayed mum about future innovation and concerns she’s hoping to deal with, she said the infusion would help her scale the brand for international expansion. “Six or eight weeks ago, we launched into the entire Sephora Canada doors, and we began shipping from our website to the U.K.,” she said, noting a possible “expansion that would exist for us in the following two years to truly be on the bottom in Europe.”

She expects Topicals to appeal to all demographics. “We’ve seen our customer really run the gamut across all kinds of ethnicities, and we wish to get it to the remainder of the world,” she said.
“That’s the goal, as an organization who’s led by a Black woman — and typically, what we see with that’s people think a brand led by a Black woman is only for Black folks.”

The brand’s revenues tripled in 2021 and are slated to grow by greater than 600 percent in 2022, it said.

Jenna Jackson, principal of growth at Cavu Consumer Partners, can even sit down on Topicals’ board. “Cavu seeks to democratize healthy living for all and as we checked out where the shopper was getting into attempting to live healthier lives, they moved outside of food and beverage into what they placed on their body,” she said. 

“There aren’t lots of category creators and I loved that Olamide was on this mission to create and disrupt this void category that focuses on chronic skin conditions, but in such a way that they make it beautiful and fun with skincare ingredients you would like to discuss,” she continued.