Local beauty tech startup Brandefy is getting ready for the launch of its new skincare line, Skincall.
The first product, Daily Triple, will be available to customers on Sept. 1.
Brandefy and Skincall founder Meg Pryde said Daily Triple is a “luxurious” serum with a “first-to-market peptide complex” trademarked as Smoothtide3. The product is formulated to help fight anti-aging at an accessible price point and was inspired by customers’ input and requests.
“Our community kept asking (for a product like this), and when we couldn’t find an affordable alternative for them, we decided to make it ourselves … by partnering with the right chemists and manufacturers,” Pryde said.
She said Skincall Daily Triple will be produced in a not-yet-publicly named southern state.
Skincall is owned by Brandefy, Pryde’s Richmond-based mobile app platform designed to help users find budget-friendly beauty product options as alternatives to pricier, cult-favorites.
Pryde said the target demographic for Skincall Daily Triple is the 30s age group, which is when people may start to notice changes in their face. She emphasized, however, that the product is effective for all age groups.
“It has so much less to do with the way someone looks, and it has everything to do with the way someone feels and wants to take care of themselves,” she said. “You’ve seen skincare really become the new self-care … That is why a lot of the younger age groups really latch onto skincare routines.”
Brandefy recently closed a $1.7 million dollar seed round, which was raised to help scale the skincare line. Pryde said the round was backed by several investors, including New York-Based The Community Fund VC.
“We have a lot of great partners,” she said. “I think the beauty industry is one that is getting more and more attention from a financial backer perspective because it is ripe for disruption, and we have created this platform that is very novel.”
Pryde added, “It puts us in a great position to excel, and that’s why we had such success with our fundraise.”
Since Brandefy’s launch in 2018, she said customer support and engagement have exceeded expectations.
“I’m happy to share that we’re up 20% in the first half of this year over last year, so it’s really exciting for us from a user base perspective,” she said. “I think the other thing that’s really cool is we’ve launched more features; There’s a lot more you can do on our mobile app.”
Pryde said Brandefy is becoming a place where beauty lovers can turn for advice, support and to interact with like-minded people.
“Someone actually said, ‘(Brandefy is) the nicest place on the internet that you didn’t know existed in beauty,’ which I loved,” she said. “But soon a lot more people will know we exist.”
Part of Brandefy’s success, Pryde said, is its strong Instagram community.
“That’s really one of the core marketing platforms we have.” She said. “I would say it’s more educational than marketing because that’s really what it focuses on, and we’ve seen that’s what our community really wants — more education around skin care.”
Pryde said Skincall products are thoroughly researched and developed with nontoxic ingredient standards by knowledgeable chemists.
“Launching Skincall has educated us in so many ways,” she said. “When you build a skincare formulation you learn everything about the sustainability of certain packaging types, the difference between where you are sourcing your ingredients … So now we have so much more knowledge at our disposal in terms of making the Brandefy platform a more comprehensive tool and resource.”
