Ami Colé is in its growth phase — in more ways than one.
The clean makeup brand founded by Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye in 2021 has secured an investment from L’Oréal’s BOLD venture capital arm, and is using the infusion of undisclosed size to fuel its team expansion and growing retail footprint.
Ami Colé was an early pioneer of the lip oil craze and has since expanded its suite of products to include complexion, eye and more. It is also sold at Sephora, with whom the brand has expanded into Canada as well as all U.S. stand-alone doors.
“Canada has been a huge success for us. We beat our first month projections in the first week,” N’Diaye-Mbaye said in an exclusive interview with WWD. “We’re moving out of being a young toddler to being a kid on the block.”
That momentum was a key part of L’Oréal’s rationale for investing in the brand.
“We have a responsibility to grow brands that are going to represent the growth in the market for the next 10 or 20 years,” said Carol Hamilton, group president of acquisitions and business development, L’Oréal USA. “We’re interested in finding the next strategic brands and it is a continuation of our love of brands, as well as participation in their invention and creation. It’s our lifeblood.”
Hamilton’s ethos for the deal revolved around “a really incredible founder,” she said, in addition to learning opportunities for L’Oréal. “We like to invest in brands and technologies that will change the beauty world for the future. It’s a good way for us to test the elasticity of the consumer’s mind as it relates to where beauty is going and where she’s spending.”
Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye
Hamilton also noted Ami Colé’s shade range as a learning opportunity for L’Oréal. “Diarrha’s expertise in formula shades and undertones of mid-range and richer tones,” was a key differentiator, she said. “If you read her reviews, everything is about undertones — she got the right yellow, orange or red undertone. There is such a beautiful spectrum of shades.”
It’s also the first time L’Oréal has made an early-stage investment in a brand with a Black founder and with a Black core customer, Hamilton said. “There are still not enough funds that are willing to invest in founders, especially female founders and Black founders. This is an opportunity to separate ourselves from those funds,” she said. “We want to support this community in a big way; it’s important for the industry that we do that.”
Amplifying that proposition is part of N’Diaye-Mbaye’s strategic priorities moving forward. She found a lot of success with beauty influencer Aysha Harun, with whom she colaunched a limited-edition shade of the brand’s Lip Treatment Oil.
“It was our first bigger partnership with an influencer to test how to best get in front of our audience. What are the new marketing ways we can increase top-of-funnel [awareness],” N’Diaye-Mbaye said. “As a baby brand, we know for sure there’s product-market fit. But brand awareness continues to be an opportunity for us.”
Ami Colé is approaching the $3.5 million mark in sales, N’Diaye-Mbaye said, a benchmark she plans to surpass with a mix of team-building, inventory growth and a heftier marketing budget.
“This is going to help us attract the right talent, and pay for the correct talent — we have to right-size the team to make sure we have the marketing chops we need, making sure our pages are built out with the right tools to convert on Sephora’s website, and making sure we can explore what winning in the field looks like,” she said.
