The Beauty Accelerator™ 2022 – Introducing the Short-Listed Brands

The Red Tree is delighted to announce that after receiving an overwhelming number of high-quality applications from brands across all categories of beauty, 3 brands have been short-listed for the Finals of The Beauty Accelerator™ 2022. The 3 brand founders will appear in The Beauty Accelerator™ 2022 Final for the chance to receive £150,000 equity investment from SFC Capital, plus a year-long collaborative partnership with The Red Tree. In this article we introduce each of the short-listed brands:

Medeau Fragrances is a luxury British fragrance brand whose formulations go above and beyond, to cut out unnecessary and potentially harmful ingredients that are typically found within luxury fragrances. For founders Allison and Ed Stubbings, sustainability has been at front of mind throughout the creation of their brand, with products made from start to finish in the UK, as well as proactively mitigating their environmental impact through a reforestation program. With addictive scents inspired by the freshness of English flowers, Medeau is setting a new standard for luxury fragrances.

layr is a hyper-personalised skincare brand which dispenses on-demand single-batch products, leveraging the brand’s patented proprietary technology that is the first of its kind to scale up personalised skincare. Founder Michel Zampa has harnessed AI that not only delivers highly accurate skin analysis, but that also delivers tailored, educational ingredient stories for every customer. Products are dispensed in visible layers to be mixed by the user for ultimate freshness, with each ingredient layer targeted to a specific skin concern. layr offers unmatched personalisation, it is revolutionising the scalability of targeted beauty and dramatically reducing the amount of waste typically found in the beauty industry.

Michelle Lauren – Hair Innovation offers a completely unique solution to ageing hair, the supplement brand is the first to offer an internal, clinically proven method of reactivating the pigment in grey hair. Born during lockdown by entrepreneur, Michelle Field, this is a pioneering supplement that is backed by research, supports hair health, and that will transform the lives of those struggling with ageing hair.

SFC Capital is the most active seed-stage investor in the UK, and was ranked fifth globally by Pitchbook in 2018, 2019 and 2022. Founded in 2012 by serial entrepreneur Stephen Page (DataEase, Sapphire), SFC Capital combines an angel syndicate with its own funds to provide investors with diversified exposure to SEIS- and EIS-qualifying businesses. Investors can back the high-potential startups directly or through a portfolio curated and managed by the SFC Capital team. Having backed more than 350 startups since its inception, notable companies in the SFC Capital portfolio include Cognism, Transcend Packaging.

Active across the whole of the UK, SFC Capital has a track record of backing high-growth businesses in parts of the UK where access to early-stage equity capital is often scarce, with notable investments including Vortex IOT (Swansea), Transcend Packaging (Caerphilly), Petalite (Birmingham), and Intupod (Belfast). In total, businesses backed by SFC Capital through its angel network and funds have created more than 500 jobs outside of London. In April 2020, SFC Capital received a £10 million commitment from British Business Investment through its Regional Angels Programme, and has recently received a further £5m to keep backing regional startups.

To find out more, please visit SFC Capital’s website at www.startupfundingclub.com or email info@startupfundingclub.com