Kiki, a Beauty Brand That Wants to Cocreate Products With Its Consumers, Has Gained Investment From The Estée Lauder Cos.’ Early Investment Arm

As well as Lauder’s New Incubation Ventures, the round was also led by a16z crypto.

Kiki

Kiki World, a beauty brand that wants to cocreate products with its consumers, has raised a $7 million funding round led by The Estée Lauder Cos.’ early investment and incubation arm, New Incubation Ventures, and a16z crypto.

Kiki World launched in May 2023 with $29 peel-off nail polish called Pretty Nail Graffiti, cocreated by its community. Since then, it has added Skin Development Kit — a skin care line where customers can vote on the key ingredients and launch order.

Using its proprietary platform and blockchain infrastructure, its audience can cocreate products by voting on what would like to see next via the Kiki World platform, as well as offer direction for the brand’s upcoming products, receive rewards for engagement and connect with other fans.

“Kiki sees the internet and the communities it connects as the engine that creates, not merely consumes,” said Jana Bobosikova, Brendon Garner, and Ricky Chan, Kiki’s cofounders, in a joint statement.

Shana Randhava, senior vice president at Lauder’s New Incubation Ventures, added: “We’re excited by the Kiki team’s vision of finding new ways to put the customer first. Kiki is leveraging the forefront of web3 tech to rethink the future of how consumers can cocreate with brands and engage in new and relevant ways. This exploration of a new consumer-centric model provides ELC with a valuable window into the future of beauty.”

The Estée Lauder Cos. unveiled its New Incubation Ventures in March 2021, making an investment in grooming brand Faculty, at the time valuing it at $3 million. It has also invested in British natural skin care and fragrance brand Haeckels, Chinese fragrance brand Melt Season, and Chinese clean beauty label Code Mint. While its investment in Kiki has only become public Tuesday, it was actually made in 2022.

It is one of a number of beauty companies like L’Oréal, Unilever, Procter & Gamble that are taking a different approach to M&A. Instead of only making very big bets, they appear to have changed tactics and are also making a number of smaller wagers on what the future looks like through investments in very early stage beauty and tech companies. Some companies are making investments as low as $50,000 in emerging brands and many are capped at around $10 million.

As for a16z crypto, it is a venture capital fund that invests in crypto and web3 startups and is part of Andreessen Horowitz, an early backer of Facebook.

“Historically, there’s been a deep connection between high-quality consumer brands and their customers, but it has been without direct input from the community — Kiki is now breaking down that barrier by letting consumers directly weigh in on what products they want to see created next,” said Arianna Simpson, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz.

Other investors in Kiki include: consumer-tech funds Double Down, 2Punks Capital and Advancit, digital communities RedDao and OrangeDao, and the digital creator GMoney.

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