Tengram Capital Partners has entered into an agreement to acquire the Algenist skincare brand from publicly-traded TerraVia. At closing, TerraVia will retain a 20% ownership interest in Algenist and will continue to supply ingredients for the Algenist product line. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the third quarter.
Algenist is a beauty brand, developed by TerraVia and launched in 2011, that delivers anti-aging and color correcting ingredients based on TerraVia’s proprietary algae-based ingredients. The brand is distributed across 23 countries through major retail channels like Sephora, ULTA and QVC. Algenist has won the 2014 Marie Claire Prix D’Excellence de la Beaute award and the 2015 Beauty O-wards from Oprah Magazine. The operations of Algenist are led by its CEO Frederic Stoeckel and are headquartered in San Francisco (www.algenist.com).
“Algenist is a unique brand in the prestige skin care market, with a distinct positioning and unique and proprietary ingredients. The recent bridge into color cosmetics leveraging the patented ingredient technology creates tremendous potential for the future growth of the brand,” said Richard Gersten, a Partner at Tengram. “We are looking forward to working with the existing team and leveraging our beauty industry expertise to drive continued growth across all global markets.”
Tengram invests in companies in the branded consumer products and retail sectors. Specific areas of interest include apparel, sporting goods, consumer electronics, home furnishings, health & beauty, spirits, and food & beverages. Tengram was founded in 2010 by William Sweedler and Matthew Eby and is based in Westport, CT (www.tengramcapital.com).
A second piece of this transaction is the formation of a new partnership by Tengram and TerraVia to focus on leveraging TerraVia’s algae-based ingredient platform and Tengram’s brand-building and investment expertise to pursue other opportunities in the beauty industry.
“We are enthusiastic about our partnership with Tengram as we work together to help Algenist achieve its extraordinary growth potential,” said Jonathan Wolfson, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of TerraVia. “This partnership allows us to focus our captive commercial operations on foods and nutrition, while maintaining participation in Algenist’s future success and gaining access to Tengram’s expertise and leadership to participate in beauty and personal care opportunities commercializing our proprietary algae platform.”
TerraVia (NASDAQ:TVIA) is a publicly held biotechnology company that uses proprietary technology to transform a range of low-cost plant-based sugars into high-value oils. The company was founded as Solazyme in March 2003 to utilize microalgae to create a renewable source of energy and transportation fuels. In March 2016, Solazyme changed its name to TerraVia and changed its focus from bio-fuels to cheaper, more sustainable food oils and personal care products. TerraVia is headquartered in South San Francisco (www.terravia.com).
Rothschild & Co. provided advisory services to TerraVia for this transaction.
© 2016 Private Equity Professional • 8-5-16
