- Connie Lo and Laura Burget, both 28, are cofounders of Canadian skincare brand Three Ships Beauty.
- They used 4,000 Canadian dollars ($3,128) of their savings to start the company in 2017.
- Here’s the pitch deck they used to raise $1 million in two weeks from the CEO of Dyson and others.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
In 2017, Connie Lo and Laura Burget were frustrated by expensive skincare and confusing labeling and decided to take manners into their own hands by creating their own vegan skincare brand right at their kitchen table.
The duo, now both 28, pooled together 4,000 Canadian dollars ($3,128) of their savings to launch Three Ships Beauty. Their first product was coconut- and essential oil-infused makeup remover wipes, which they made in Lo’s apartment and sold at farmer’s markets in Toronto.
During the day, the duo worked full time in corporate sales, and during evenings and weekends, they brainstormed ideas and packaged products until 3 a.m. By September 2018, they’d quit their jobs, moved production to Lo’s parents’ basement, and expanded the line to 18 products.
Three Ships Beauty.
Courtesy of Three Ships Beauty
The brand became a fast favorite with magazine editors and retailers, but when the pandemic hit, the retail shops selling their stock closed, shipping costs rose, and then the bestselling Radiance Day Cream went out of stock, as one of the ingredients came from Italy.
They needed funding — luckily, in August 2020 their application to “Dragons’ Den” (the Canadian version of “Shark Tank”) was accepted. After a successful pitch, they took millionaire Jim Treliving’s offer of 350,000 Canadian dollars ($273,738), but ultimately decided to turn it down, go it alone, and seek funding elsewhere.
Lo and Burget pitching on “Dragon’s Den.”
Courtesy of Three Ships Beauty
They started pitching to VCs they’d met at trade shows, approached on LinkedIn, or been introduced to by other angel investors in October 2020. Their starting goal was 550,000 Canadian dollars ($430,160), but instead they raised 1.4 million Canadian dollars ($1.095 million) in two weeks. The result of the funding is a team of 13, a new headquarters in Toronto, and a plan to launch in Europe …….
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/pitch-deck-vegan-skincare-beauty-cofounders-raise-million-2021-9
