UNIVERSAL-BEAUTY
9.12.2021 19:17:05 CET | Business Wire | Press release
The French natural cosmetics company, known for its Végétalement Provence brand, announces a €6m capital raise from a group of investors led by Connect Pro, an investment fund based in Marseille.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211209005914/en/
New shareholders
The arrival of new investors to develop Végétalement Provence, is led by Connect Pro alongside the private equity funds BNP Paribas Développement and Etoile Capital, whose membership of leading banking groups, will ensure the sustainability of the support. The financing is completed by the Région Sud Investissement fund.
« We were won over by the commitment and geographic proximity of Connect Pro and its co-investors, to help companies of our region to grow in France and internationally».
Vincent Faraco,
Co-Founder of Universal Beauty Group
Following the transaction, the founders, Vincent Faraco and Jean-Marc Delabre, will remain reference shareholders and will continue to lead the group.
« We are proud to invest in Universal Beauty Group, which will be the first investment of our new Sud Rebound fund launched in June this year. This venture in the heart of the local economic ecosystem is fully in line with our strategy to support the development of key business in our region».
Franck Paoli,
President and Founder of Connect Pro
Partners in growth
The investors’ entry into the company’s capital will allow the business to accelerate its development in the rapidly expanding natural beauty sector, a market expected to show annual growth of 6-9% over the period 2021-2027.
This transaction follows the first investment in the company’s capital in 2017 made by the private-equity fund Audacia, whose support has made it possible to double the number of product references and open 3 own-brand concept salons alongside about twenty independent concept salons under the Végétalement Provence brand, including the most recent salon opened in Lyon in October.
Végétalement Provence – a committed beauty brand
In 2008, Universal Beauty Group started as a distributor of haircare brands before launching its own brand Végétalement Provence in 2011 to offer hairdressing professionals a technical product that was kinder to the environment and customers’ health. In the space of a few years, Végétalement Provence has become a premium beauty brand recognized as much by professionals as by a general public in search of wellness.
With 170,000 products sold in 2020, Universal Beauty Group forecasts sales of €4m in 2021, with an EBITDA margin of around 20%. 70% of sales are made in mainland France, 15% in the French island of Reunion, and 15% internationally. Its eco-responsible products have been rewarded with numerous prizes for their innovation, and are acclaimed by international colourists and hair stylists in search of natural and high-performance products. The brand is distributed via more than 500 points of sale and through its own e-shop.
Established in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in the South of France since 2014, Universal Beauty Group, with the support of its teams, training academy, and logistics base, is ready to become a major player in alternative cosmetics and beauty.
« We are delighted to welcome our new partners who will bring their vision and support to the growth of Végétalement Provence whose potential is limitless ».
Jean-Marc Delabre,
Co-Founder of Universal Beauty Group
Among the projects for Végétalement Provence
The product range, designed and developed in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence will be further expanded. With the support of its new investor base focused on the region, Universal Beauty will place a particular emphasis on innovation
The company also plans to open a concept store in Paris in Spring 2022, a new base for Végétalement Provence. A significant investment will be dedicated to the digital development of the brand and to support e-commerce. Previously centred more on its domestic market, the new round of financing will allow the company to consolidate its international expansion.
"We are delighted to accompany the leaders of Végétalement Provence in this great adventure. With its unique products, Végétalement Provence responds to a fundamental trend. The increase in the number of people looking for natural products continues to grow and will offer significant development opportunities."
Rémy Garello,
Managing Director of Connect Pro
Fundraising process
The transaction is the conclusion of a competitive process launched in May 2021 to search for an investor. The process attracted very strong interest both in France and abroad from haircare and beauty companies, as well as private equity and family offices.
Universal Beauty Group was advised by Richard Morgan Advisory (Richard Morgan) and the law firm Volt Associés (Stéphane Letranchant, Lucas d'Orgeval). The investors were advised by the law firm Nova Partners (Olivier Nett, Julien Immoff), with the financial audit carried out by Deloitte Finance (Thomas Gorguis).
Universal Beauty Group - Végétalement Provence
Since its launch in 2011, with its hair and skincare ranges, Végétalement Provence quickly established itself as a real alternative to major brands among hairdressers and beauty professionals.
Its efficient plant-based product ranges, with natural and organic sourcing, meet the needs of a demanding professional public looking for technical prowess with a philosophy of eco-responsibility. In addition to the attractiveness and performance of its products, Universal Beauty Group benefits from a network of professional customers whose resale rate of Végétalement Provence products is unparalleled. While the usual resale rate of the sector in France is around 5%, it exceeds 20% with Végétalement Provence.
Today the brand offers a range of over 275 different beauty product references including 140 in hair and skincare for the general public, covering all needs.
Its ranges combine not just beauty and health, but also wellness based on the foundation of innovation and commitment.
The development of creative styling products, and the introduction of a specific line for ethnic hair, complete the product range. The Essentiels collection, with its shampoos and conditioners, has become a must-have for lovers of the brand.
For its professional clientele, Végétalement Provence offers a range of more than 130 colouring references, with an offer by oxidation and an organic offer based on plant powder.
Végétalement Provence currently has about twenty employees in its Saint-Rémy-de-Provence headquarters.
Connect Pro
Since its creation in 2007, Connect Pro has been supporting small and midcap businesses in the South of France in their development and transmission needs with more than €70m in capital invested. Among the latest equity investments, Mariton designs, manufacturer and distributer of custom-made mosquito nets and interior blinds, EITP, a heating and air-conditioning company and Pharma Santé Développement, a group of independent pharmacies. With Sud Rebond, Connect Pro launched its third fund in June 2021 with a fundraising of more than €15m from institutional investors and entrepreneurs in the South-East of France. It will be completed by a second round of fundraising in the first half of 2022 to reach €25m.
BNP Paribas Développement
One of the private equity funds of the BNP Paribas banking group, BNP Paribas Développement, manages €1 billion of its own funds, investing directly to support the development of successful mid-sized companies. BNP Paribas Développement, whose mission is to support management teams in the realization of medium-term strategic projects, has a portfolio of more than 400 holdings.
www.bnpparibasdeveloppement.com
Etoile Capital
Etoile Capital, a subsidiary of the bank Crédit du Nord, is a shareholder of French small business in widely diversified sectors, with a portfolio currently of about twenty investments. It positions itself as a shareholder in the capital of corporate clients of the various regional banks that make up the Crédit du Nord group. The fund brings to the shareholders and managers of its invested companies its expertise in strategic thinking and the means to accelerate development.
www.corporatefinance.groupe-credit-du-nord.fr
Région Sud Investissement
Région Sud Investissement is the regional investment company created in 2010 by the Southern Region of France to support the emergence and development of high growth companies.
Région Sud Investissement, endowed with €134m, benefits from the support of the European Union through the ERDF (European Regional Development Fund), which contributes 42% of its funding. Région Sud Investissement is advised by Turenne Groupe in the management of its holdings.
www.regionsudinvestissement.com
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211209005914/en/
About Business Wire
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Vercel Brings New Agent Framework, Full-Stack Capabilities, and Enterprise Controls to Its Agentic Infrastructure Platform17.6.2026 12:13:00 CEST | Press release
As agents become the primary way software is built and deployed, Vercel connects its frontend, backend, and agent tooling into a single platform for shipping and running agents at scale. Today at Ship, its annual conference, Vercel introduced a set of new products that deepen its agentic infrastructure platform trusted by DoorDash, Helly Hansen, OpenAI, Stripe, and The Weather Company. Founder and CEO Guillermo Rauch and other Vercel leaders unveiled the lineup on stage, anchored by three shifts the products address: agents are now the dominant way software gets deployed, every application is becoming agentic, and enterprises need to run agents in production securely and at scale. The transition is well underway. Six months ago, fewer than three percent of deployments to Vercel infrastructure were triggered by coding agents. Agents now account for more than half. Token volume through Vercel's AI Gateway has grown from roughly two trillion to twenty trillion per month over the same peri
NIQ Introduces NIQ Cadence: A Compound AI Operating System for Marketing Effectiveness17.6.2026 12:00:00 CEST | Press release
One system unifies NIQ’s global data, models, and knowledge so marketers move from insight to impact faster, with deeper intelligence, at scale. NIQ (NYSE: NIQ), a global leader in consumer intelligence, today introduced NIQ Cadence, a compound AI operating system built to change how organizations measure marketing performance, optimize budgets, and act on what the data tells them. NIQ Cadence brings data and intelligence into one continuous environment, moving marketers off fragmented reports and onto a single system that empowers decision making. Marketing has never been more complex. Channels keep multiplying, data sits in silos, and the pressure to prove ROI keeps climbing. As a result, most teams still stitch insight and action together by hand, losing time and confidence at every handoff. NIQ Cadence closes that gap with one system where measurement and decision-making finally run together. “Marketing leaders don’t need more reports. They need a better rhythm,” said Jason Tate, G
Winning With AI Requires Organizational Transformation, Not Speed of Adoption, Finds New Arthur D. Little Report17.6.2026 12:00:00 CEST | Press release
To successfully embrace the power of AI, businesses need to remove organizational complexity and eliminate unnecessary work, rather than simply using it for fragmented, incremental improvements. Boards must act now to deliver this. That is the key message from AI-First or Disrupted: Beating the Nightmare Competitor, a new report from Arthur D. Little (ADL) based on concrete examples from leading organizations. Within three to five years, AI-first competitors will make faster decisions, have flatter organizations, and operate at lower costs. They will not just optimize handovers between teams, approvals, and reconciliation work; they will eliminate these complex processes entirely. AI is completely changing the economics of work and value creation, removing the need for coordination across multiple teams, while also enabling adaptive, predictive, and personalized products and services. This delivers both lower operational costs and a fundamentally stronger value proposition. However, mo
WISE Closes Oversubscribed Series D Financing Round of €30 Million, Welcoming ENEA Tech and Biomedical as Strategic New Investor17.6.2026 12:00:00 CEST | Press release
WISE S.p.A., a pioneering medical device company specializing in advanced implantable electrodes for neuromonitoring, neuromodulation, and brain-computer interface (BCI), today announced the successful closing of an oversubscribed Series D financing round totaling €30 million. The round was joined by ENEA Tech and Biomedical, an Italian foundation dedicated to innovation and technology transfer in the biomedical sector, which enters WISE's investor base as a strategic partner. This final closing builds on the first closing of the round completed in June 2024, which included a venture debt facility from the European Investment Bank (EIB) supported by InvestEU, alongside an equity investment from new investor Wallaby S.p.A. — the family office of the Scagliarini family (GVS S.p.A.) — and existing financial partners New Frontier S.r.l., Eureka Venture SGR, and Indaco Ventures SGR. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20
VENU+ Brings Next-Generation Guest Experience Technology to Al Shallal Theme Park17.6.2026 12:00:00 CEST | Press release
First Saudi Arabian deployment of VENU+’s GoPod locker technology supports continued Middle East expansion and growing demand for modern attraction infrastructure VENU+, a leading global provider of tech-enabled guest mobility, storage, and entertainment solutions today announced the upcoming deployment of its GoPod® Locker technology platform at Al Shallal Theme Park, one of Saudi Arabia’s most recognized amusement destinations. VENU+ is backed by ZCG Private Equity, the private equity arm of Z Capital Group (“ZCG”), a privately held global firm. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260617240101/en/ The installation, scheduled to go live in Summer 2026, marks VENU+’s first customer deployment in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and represents another milestone in the company’s accelerating global expansion across high-growth tourism and entertainment markets. Located in the heart of Jeddah near the city’s Formula One c
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom