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Hollywood star Jessica Alba wasn't exactly penniless at the beginning of the week, but she's reached new heights of wealth after her e-commerce startup Honest Company closed a $100 million funding round on Friday. The funding valued the non-toxic household product maker, which Alba owns a fifth of, at more than $1.7 billion. That puts Alba's financial worth at about $340 million. That's $90 million more than Beyoncé Knowles, to put it in perspective, according to Forbes.
Successful tech startups can quickly turn even bankrupt founders into millionaires, of course. Still, it's plenty notable when an already famous and wealthy person like Alba jumps onto Forbes list of 40 wealthiest self-made women in the country. The $6 million in seed money Alba and her co-founder Brian Lee put into the startup could ultimately make them billionaires, assuming Honest Company has the kind of IPO that this Glade Brook Capital Partners-led round suggests is possible. Not bad for a company that started off selling diapers online.
The company has 120 products now, and indicated the new money will be used to add to the product line of makeup and skin and hair products sold under its Honest Beauty line. But the company hasn't had a completely smooth ride to success. There was a rash of complaints on social media that Honest Co.'s sunscreen didn't work. People posted pictures of the sunburns they and their children were getting despite using the sunscreen. The complaints added up enough that Alba responded on Honest's blog, explaining that the sunscreen had gone through all the appropriate testing and official approval before going on the market and that it did work. Assuming that there are no more hiccups like that, and that the sunscreen complaints don't presage a deluge of related complaints about the products not working, Alba might be remembered almost as much as a tech entrepreneur as she is an actor in years to come.
