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Introduction
In August 2023 e.l.f. Beauty agreed to buy the skincare brand Naturium for around 355 million dollars. On the surface it is a routine beauty acquisition. Look closer and it is a lesson in modern brand-building: a company founded only in 2019, grown partly on a founder's own skincare following, sold for a third of a billion dollars in barely four years. That speed and that price tell you something about where brand value comes from now.
Here is the deal by the numbers, why e.l.f. wanted it, what it signals, plus the takeaway for anyone building a brand.
The deal at a glance
The headline facts, drawn from e.l.f.'s own announcement and the reporting around it. Forward-looking figures are estimates from the time.
| Detail | What was reported |
|---|---|
| Price | Around 355 million dollars in cash and stock, roughly 72 million of it in e.l.f. shares |
| Announced | Late August 2023, closing around the end of September that year |
| What Naturium is | An ingredient-led skincare brand, founded 2019, at an accessible price point near 18 dollars |
| Growth | Net sales reportedly compounding near 80 percent over two years, with roughly 90 million expected that year |
| Strategic effect | Expected to roughly double e.l.f.'s skincare presence to about 18 percent of retail sales |
Figures from e.l.f. Beauty's announcement and reporting (Glossy, BeautyMatter, PYMNTS). Projections are as stated at the time.
Why e.l.f. wanted it
The strategic logic was tidy, which is part of why the market liked it. A few threads ran through e.l.f.'s reasoning.
Naturium roughly doubled e.l.f.'s skincare footprint in a single move, taking it to around 18 percent of retail sales by the company's own account. The brand's mix of effective formulas and low prices mirrored e.l.f.'s mission of accessible beauty, with its leadership openly likening Naturium to where e.l.f. itself stood years earlier. It was also growing fast and expected to add to adjusted earnings the following year. In short, e.l.f. bought a smaller version of its own playbook, already proven in a category it wanted to own.
What it signals
Strip away the financial detail and one theme stands out, the one worth your attention as a marketer.
How Flinque helps
This is a marketing site, so the honest link is narrow and clear. Flinque is not an M&A tool. It had nothing to do with this deal. But the lesson the Naturium acquisition teaches, that creator-led community is real value, points straight at how brands should think about creators in the first place.
If community built on trusted voices is what makes a brand worth buying, then choosing the right voices early matters more than ever. Flinque is one option there. Flinque lets you search across Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and X, filter down to creators whose audience and niche fit, then confirm each is real through a fake-follower check and an engagement score, so the people you build with have real, engaged communities rather than hollow reach. Its index spans 10M+ verified creators in 25+ countries, free to begin then $49 a month. Build on genuine community, the way the brands worth acquiring did.
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How much did e.l.f. Beauty pay for Naturium?+
Around 355 million dollars, in a combination of cash and stock, with roughly 72 million of that in e.l.f. shares. The publicly traded company, listed on the NYSE as ELF, announced the definitive agreement in late August 2023 and closed the deal at the end of September that year. It was a notable move at a time when beauty mergers and acquisitions were rebounding, sitting alongside deals like L'Oreal's purchase of Aesop.
What is Naturium?+
A fast-growing, ingredient-led skincare brand built around effective formulas at accessible prices, with an average selling price around 18 dollars. It launched in 2019 through the Los Angeles brand accelerator The Center, with Susan Yara joining as a founder, then grew quickly through Target, Amazon and its own site. By the time of the deal it was one of Target's fastest-growing skincare brands and had been named a Target beauty vendor of the year.
Why did e.l.f. Beauty acquire Naturium?+
To roughly double its presence in skincare, to about 18 percent of retail sales, according to the company. Naturium's affordable, effective, community-driven model closely matched e.l.f.'s own mission of accessible beauty, with CEO Tarang Amin publicly comparing it to where e.l.f. itself was years earlier. The brand was also growing fast, with net sales reportedly compounding at around 80 percent over the prior two years and roughly 90 million dollars expected that year.
Was the Naturium deal good for e.l.f.?+
The company framed it as accretive to adjusted earnings in the following fiscal year, while analysts at the time were broadly positive, with at least one raising its price target. e.l.f. was already growing strongly, reporting around 76 percent net-sales growth in a recent quarter. The deal also fit a clear pattern: e.l.f. later agreed a much larger, roughly one-billion-dollar deal for Hailey Bieber's rhode, underscoring its appetite for creator-driven brands.
What does the deal mean for creator-built brands?+
It is a marker of how much community and creator equity is now worth. Naturium grew partly on the back of founder Susan Yara's own skincare following and a community-first approach, then a major company paid hundreds of millions for it within a few years. The lesson for marketers is that authentic creator-led communities build real, sellable brand value. Building that starts with the right creators, which is where a discovery tool like Flinque fits in.
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