SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--FORMA Brands (“the company”), an incubator, accelerator, and curator of next-generation beauty brands, today announced the formation of its company and launch as a multi-category platform. Formerly known as Morphe Holdings, FORMA Brands realizes the growth strategy first announced through its partnership established with General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity firm, in August 2019.
Over the past year, FORMA Brands has bolstered its leadership team and board to include seasoned beauty, retail and consumer strategists and creatives to develop this global platform. The company’s portfolio of multi-category brands is focused on serving Millennial and Gen Z audiences and addressing opportunities in the marketplace within the broader beauty landscape, including color cosmetics, skincare, body care, haircare, and health & wellness.
“The launch of FORMA Brands realizes our vision for transforming our business into a multi-branded, multi-category portfolio of next-generation beauty brands,” said Myles McCormick, Chief Executive Officer of FORMA Brands. “FORMA builds on the success of the Morphe brand and demonstrates our approach and capabilities to accelerate the development and growth of founder and influencer-led beauty brands. I am extremely proud of what our entire global team has accomplished, as well as our ongoing partnership with Morphe’s founders, and I am energized to leverage the platform we have developed into new brands, new categories, new consumers and new geographies to celebrate all forms of beauty.”
“We are thrilled by the progress of the past year despite the current environment, a result of the work Myles and his team have accomplished in building a leading global beauty platform and portfolio with FORMA,” said Andrew Ferrer, Managing Director at General Atlantic and Board member of FORMA Brands. “At General Atlantic, we partner with high-growth, innovative global brands and are impressed by the pace at which FORMA has scaled across channels, geographies, and categories. We look forward to the opportunity ahead to address the unmet needs of Gen Z and Millennial consumers.”
Portfolio Strategy
FORMA Brands has developed a portfolio of brands including Morphe, Morphe 2, Jaclyn Cosmetics, Such Good Everything, and Playa Beauty, with more to come. Portfolio brands and products are thoughtfully selected, acquired or created to appeal to FORMA audience tastes, needs, and price points. The company will continue to build its portfolio focused on the broader beauty landscape including color cosmetics, skincare, body care, haircare, and health & wellness through a three-pronged strategy:
- Incubator: create original brands from the ground up that seamlessly fit into the growing FORMA portfolio and address unmet needs, desires, and opportunities in our addressable markets with existing and new audiences. These incubator brands will be created both in-house as well as in partnership with others. Our accomplished team brings experience developing high growth consumer and specialty retailing companies on a global scale. We will bring this same expertise when partnering with other entrepreneurs across music, entertainment, and beauty to create brands reflecting their creative expression.
- Accelerator: invest in and partner with like-minded brands with the goal of accelerating and realizing each founder’s vision by enabling them to leverage the strength, experience and reach of the FORMA platform. This includes providing world class global product and brand development, supply chain and e-commerce capabilities – paired with access to a broad global distribution footprint with over 4,000 points of sales with leading specialty retailers and a prolific global influencer network.
- Curator: select third-party brands and products that will appeal to Gen Z and Millennial consumers at FORMA’s 50+ global Morphe stores and global ecommerce sites. Morphe has proven this omnichannel approach by partnering with third-party, next-generation brands such as Beauty Bakerie, Iconic London, and P.Louise to provide them with the opportunity to be discovered throughout Morphe’s global retail and e-commerce network. Morphe’s brand website has had over 90 million unique visitors and over 200 million visits over the last year.
Introducing New Brands Under the FORMA Portfolio
As part of FORMA’s accelerator strategy, the company is excited to announce the acquisition of Playa Beauty, a haircare line that delivers laid-back California style through clean, easy-to-use products. This transaction represents the company’s first entry into the haircare space, adding a diversity of products and distribution to the broader portfolio. In conjunction with the announcement, Shelby Wild, Founder of Playa, and her team have joined FORMA Brands to accelerate and expand upon the brand and product success realized to date.
“Our partnership with FORMA positions us to share the laid-back luxury and effortless spirit of Playa Beauty and our haircare products with a larger global audience by leveraging FORMA’s channels and reach,” said Shelby Wild, Founder of Playa Beauty. “I look forward to working with the collaborative team at FORMA to continue to capture the opportunity within the rapidly growing haircare category as well as other categories together.”
FORMA also announced the upcoming Fall 2020 launch of wellness brand Such Good Everything as part of the company’s incubator strategy. Such Good Everything was created for people overwhelmed by endless wellness choices. The brand provides vegan gummy vitamin supplements at an accessible price point to address sleep, hair, skin, and belly health as well as other wellness categories. Such Good Everything is the second incubator brand to join the portfolio following the July launch of Morphe 2.
The company plans to introduce additional brands by the end of the year including its first skincare and body care lines to diversify the growing portfolio.
Experienced Leadership Team
As part of the company’s business transformation over the past year, FORMA Brands has bolstered its board and leadership team of seasoned beauty, retail, and consumer operators led by CEO Myles McCormick. Additions to the leadership team include Simon Cowell, former CEO of Bare Escentuals, who serves as President, and Erika Savage, former SVP of Interscope Records, who leads Partnership Development for FORMA Brands. The company also appointed Cathy Beaudoin to its Board of Directors, former President of Amazon Fashion and founder of Piperlime, the online retail company, which was part of the Gap, Inc. portfolio.
About FORMA Brands
FORMA Brands (“the company”) is an incubator, accelerator, and curator of next-generation beauty brands and products. Its growing multi-branded and multi-category portfolio includes Morphe, Morphe 2, Jaclyn Cosmetics, Such Good Everything and Playa Beauty, with more to come. Each portfolio brand is thoughtfully selected, acquired, or created with creative and bold artists and founders. Each brand showcases differentiated products and a unique story while embracing all forms of beauty. The company has a global presence with offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, London, and Shanghai. For more information on FORMA Brands, please visit: www.FORMABrands.com.
About General Atlantic
General Atlantic is a leading global growth equity firm providing capital and strategic support for growth companies. Established in 1980, General Atlantic combines a collaborative global approach, sector specific expertise, a long-term investment horizon and a deep understanding of growth drivers to partner with great entrepreneurs and management teams to build exceptional businesses worldwide. General Atlantic has more than 150 investment professionals based in New York, Amsterdam, Beijing, Greenwich, Hong Kong, Jakarta, London, Mexico City, Mumbai, Munich, Palo Alto, São Paulo, Shanghai, and Singapore. For more information on General Atlantic, please visit the website: www.generalatlantic.com.
