Bansk Group has made another beauty acquisition.
The parent company of Amika, Eva NYC and Ethique has acquired Yellow Wood Partners’ majority stake in the skin care brand Byoma. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“We really love the beauty and personal care space. The consumer is so engaged and when you have strong brands with demonstrated efficacy, you see a lot of consumer loyalty. We’ve been focused for the last couple of years on building a portfolio of personal care brands,” said Chris Kelly, senior partner at Bansk Group. “We’ve been evaluating a number of skin care opportunities and have been focused on finding the right ones.”
It comes at a time when beauty M&A activity is warming up, with skin and personal care acquisitions ranging from Medik8’s sale to L’Oréal, Rhode’s acquisition by E.l.f. Beauty and Touchland’s transaction with Church & Dwight. “We’ve watched this brand go from zero, when it was once just Marc’s idea, supported it, funded it, and help get distribution for it. But a brand gets to a size where it might benefit from a new pair of eyes,” said Dana Schmaltz, partner, Yellow Wood.
Byoma, which launched in 2022 as a barrier-focused, masstige skin care brand under Future Beauty Labs — the brainchild of founder and chief executive officer Marc Elrick — is expected to close out 2025 with over $300 million in global retail sales, as previously reported. Skin care’s sweet spot is currently brands spanning both mass and prestige distribution, such as Byoma, which is sold via Target Corp. and Ulta Beauty in the U.S. and Sephora, Space NK and Boots in the U.K.
“We are continuing to grow, drive and shape the category at most of our retailers,” Elrick said, who is maintaining his minority position in the business. The existing leadership team, he added, will stay intact.
“Byoma will essentially continue to operate as a stand-alone business. But the partnership with Bansk unlocks an accelerated growth trajectory in our journey, really allowing us to continue to invest in impactful areas: people, research and development, strengthening our infrastructure, and building local teams to continue to support the business as we scale globally.”
Indeed, what started as a brand centered on barrier health has since gone after varied demographics and need states, most recently including acne. For clinical testing $2 million went into that range, and sales were expected to hit anywhere between $25 million and $50 million at retail globally.
“We’re building a skin health brand for the next generation of consumers,” Elrick said. “That has to be deeply rooted in science and research. Having our own lab is just a small part of that, and now we’re thinking about how we operate in a much bigger way, and that includes investing more across the board.”
Bansk has had success with past beauty brands. Amika in particular is of note, with market leadership in the dry shampoo subsegment. As reported, it’s the fourth-largest prestige hair brand by sales in the U.S.
“We believe [Byoma] has incredible growth opportunities ahead of it, and we think those growth opportunities can come from a variety of specific steps,” Kelly added. “We’re excited about the quality of the formulas and think there’s an opportunity to continue to refine and help the consumer understand what they’re getting in the bottle. There’s also operational opportunities that will allow us to add in more marketing dollars to the P&L and be able to grow awareness. The brand has been really successful, but awareness is relatively low in the market.”
Elrick, who has been known to double-punch with both formula innovation and robust marketing strategies, said, “We have an operating model that works. We understand skin health and we understand the category, but we also are passionately committed to knowing and serving our consumer and we’re committed to finding ways to connect with them on a deeper level and serve their true needs.
“It’s just continued investment in what’s currently working — we don’t need to start over again because we’re just doubling down,” he said, “and striving to do it better than anyone else.”
Raymond James represented Byoma in the transaction.
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