Function of Beauty creates personalized shampoo and conditioner by using a customer quiz that feeds an algorithm to determine which ingredients and how much of each should be used for each user. The company’s algorithm can produce up to 12 billion custom combinations and the brand emphasizes celebrating individuality. Launched in December 2015 and Y Combinator‑backed, Function of Beauty has been refining its brand and buffing the personalization algorithm. The company is responding to user feedback by adding subscription purchases and has run a successful NYC pop-up to grow brand awareness. Proceeds from the new funding will be used to continue product and brand refinement, plan international expansion, and open a flagship store in New York City. Financially, the company announced a new $9.5M Series A and has $12M in total funding to date. Function of Beauty builds customized shampoo and conditioner formulas sold direct-to-consumer online. Customers choose scent, hair type (straight to curly, dry to oily, thin to coarse) and combine multiple hair goals; the company currently offers 450 million different combinations. The site provides instant chat with a hair chemist to help users self-assess, and the company plans to offer a kit to determine the proper formula for uncertain customers. Today the team hand-fills each bottle and uses a software algorithm to generate precise formulas; they plan to build an advanced robotics machine to automate blending and filling and to support far larger numbers of ingredient combinations. Customers can name their specific formula and have that name printed on the bottle. Pricing is $26 for an 8oz set and $38 for a 16oz set; funding to date has come largely from the founders and a $100k friends-and-family round, and the company is backed by Y Combinator.

Total raised

$10M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Mar 2017