Iris&Romeo offers clean beauty products positioned to simplify morning routines and promote skin wellness. The brand emphasizes thoughtful, conscious product creation and is led by CEO Tara Desai and founder Michele Gough-Baril. The company is preparing a retail rollout, including a launch at Sephora. Iris&Romeo raised a Series A (amount undisclosed) to support this next stage. Proceeds will be used to improve retail readiness via supply chain sufficiencies, to elevate brand-first content, and to secure key hires. No operating metrics or revenue figures were disclosed in the article. Iris & Romeo sells clean-beauty, multitasking products — its hero product is Best Skin Days (a tinted moisturizer with SPF) and its latest launch, Weekend Skin, combines vitamin C with SPF 50. The brand emphasizes a tightly curated assortment and supports women-focused social causes through partnerships like Every Mother Counts and I Am A Voter. Management recently appointed Tara Desai (formerly of Estée Lauder) as CEO while founder Michelle Gough-Baril remains focused on creative and product development. The company reported that 55% of its revenue came from unpaid efforts between 2020 and the first half of 2021. Proceeds from the latest round will fund marketing and hiring (including a social media manager); the company plans direct-marketing growth via email, SEO, paid social and affiliates. Iris & Romeo aims for 300% year-over-year revenue growth in 2022, three additional product launches in 2022, further category expansion in 2023, and a retail launch plus a Series A by the end of 2023. Iris&Romeo is a direct-to-consumer beauty brand founded by former Smashbox executive Michele Gough Baril in October 2019. The company’s core product is Best Skin Days, a tinted moisturizer with SPF, and it focuses on skin-meets-makeup hybrid products for women generally between ages 30 and 50. Its formulations prioritize clean ingredients and glass packaging, and the brand has leaned on Instagram and Facebook and unpaid promotion—earning 55% of revenue from unpaid efforts over the past year. The company reported roughly 30% month-on-month growth through the pandemic, aided by celebrity fans who posted about gifted products. Plans for the new funding include growing the team, expanding the Best Skin Days shade range, launching two new products this year (another complexion product and an eye product), and continuing to scale DTC while beginning retailer conversations.

Total raised

$7M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Dec 2022