RŌZ by Mara Roszak Closes Growth Equity Investment From Silas Capital and G9 Ventures

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 12, 2024--

RŌZ, the clean, high-performing haircare line by celebrity hairstylist Mara Roszak, announced they closed an oversubscribed seed round led by investment partner Silas Capital, an emerging growth equity and venture capital firm focused on exceptional next-generation consumer brands, with significant participation from G9 Ventures. Additional investors include notable celebrity makeup artists and hairstylists Melanie Inglessis, Rachel Goodwin, Pati Dubroff, Sami Knight, Kylee Heath, and Ericka Verrett. Additionally, Lily Collins joins previously announced celebrity investors Mila Kunis, Daisy Ridley, Zoe Saldana, and Brooklyn Decker, who invested during an earlier friends-and-family round. This funding will be utilized to accelerate retail expansion, further enhance RŌZ’s presence in the professional channel, augment team and fuel product innovation.

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RŌZ Hair (Photo: Business Wire)

For over 20 years, Mara Roszak has been the master artist behind the iconic, effortless red-carpet hair of A-list celebrities like Emma Stone, Zoe Saldana, Olivia Wilde, Natalie Portman, Nicole Kidman, and Kristen Wiig. She was inspired to create RŌZ when she recognized the need for a haircare line that offered professional-strength performance with clean, sustainably sourced formulas, without sacrificing quality or results. Mara officially launched RŌZ in 2021, starting with two products, and has since expanded to a range of eight curated styling and haircare products. RŌZ is available at major retailers like Credo, Neiman Marcus, Goop, Nordstrom, Revolve. Additionally, RŌZ is available at independent retailers and professional salons across the country, experiencing triple-digit door growth YoY.

With Roszak’s expertise driving each formulation, RŌZ caters to the needs of consumers and professional stylists alike, and has cultivated its salon channel through a dedicated in-house sales team focused on both new business and retention. Building on this solid foundation, the seed round follows the launch of RŌZ’s latest treatment innovation, the Foundation Mask—a nourishing hair mask designed to deeply hydrate, repair damage, and protect color. The brand has earned numerous accolades, including Allure’s Best of Beauty Award for their Foundation Shampoo, Foundation Conditioner, and Santa Lucia Styling Oil; Harper’s Bazaar Hair Awards and Zoe Report’s Beauty Groundbreaker Award for their Root Lift Spray; and GQ’s Grooming Awards and InStyle’s Best Beauty Buys for their Milk Hair Serum.

“The growth and momentum of the business has been extraordinary, and the enthusiastic response to our product formulations from both professionals and clients has been nothing short of remarkable,” says Mara Roszak, founder. “RŌZ is my greatest passion, and having growth partners who share my excitement and understand my vision is a dream come true. I am incredibly proud to welcome Silas Capital, G9 Ventures, and Lily Collins and some of my incredible peers as partners, and together, we will continue to bring this vision to life.”

"Mara has rapidly built one of the most sought-after brands in the haircare category," said Brian Thorne, Partner at Silas Capital. "With its award-winning line of clean, easy-to-use hair essentials that deliver professional-level performance, we believe this expert-led brand uniquely addresses a clear whitespace in the market. We’re thrilled to partner with Mara, alongside her unmatched roster of A-list clients and community of professional stylists, to support RŌZ’s impressive momentum across channels.”

“We are thrilled to partner with Mara as she builds a prestige, omni-channel haircare brand for modern women. In an industry that too often focuses on what is wrong with your hair, RŌZ’s mission is to enhance your natural hair. The result is a line of clean, fuss-free products that work. The brand’s positioning, combined with Mara’s expertise and focus on performance, has organically attracted a loyal community looking to achieve healthy, effortless hair,” said Amy Griffin and Anna Doherty of G9 Ventures.

ABOUT RŌZ

RŌZ (pronounced rose) is founded on the belief that beautiful hair doesn’t have to be complicated. Their nourishing, lightweight formulas prioritize professional performance and ease of use above all else. The expertly edited collection of essentials utilizes highly efficacious ingredients derived from nature to help you achieve your most beautiful hair day, every day.

ABOUT SILAS CAPITAL

Since 2012, Silas Capital has been an active emerging growth equity and venture capital investor that partners with consumer brands, in order to help these companies achieve significant revenue growth and profitability, improve operational efficiency, and increase brand recognition and value. The complementary backgrounds of the firm's partners comprise executive leadership roles across growth equity and venture capital firms, as well as operating companies, which allows the group to deliver on a unique value-add proposition to the management teams, founders and companies with whom Silas partners. The firm not only invests capital to help these companies grow, but also brings significant resources and capabilities to actively assist in the growth of revenue through its expertise in e-commerce and digital expansion, alongside its knowledge of traditional wholesale and retail channels. Previous and current investments for Silas include Bare Snacks, Bellroy, Boll & Branch, Cake, Chief, HATCH, Herbivore, ILIA Beauty, Lord Jones, Makeup By Mario, Sakara Life, Summersalt, Vacation, Violette_FR and Wonderbelly to name a few. Learn more at www.silascapital.com.

ABOUT G9 VENTURES

G9 Ventures is a private, evergreen fund focused on investing in generation-defining brands that empower consumers to live, look, and feel better. The firm applies this better-for-you thesis across the beauty, wellness, health, and community sub-sectors of the consumer ecosystem. As a permanent capital vehicle, G9 has a uniquely long investment horizon and the flexibility to be true long-term partners, directly aligning incentives with founders and management teams. The firm focuses on meeting founders early, typically writing an initial check in a Seed / Series A fundraise and continuing to partner as the business matures. The team also assesses later stage growth equity opportunities (Series B - pre-IPO) in companies that are aligned with the firm’s thesis and where there continues to be significant upside potential. G9 has over 60 portfolio companies, including Bumble (BMBL), Kindbody, On Running (ONON), Oura, Athletic Greens, Kitsch, Saie and Spanx.

Mara Roszak (Photo: Business Wire)

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The Israeli military said Tuesday an American activist killed in the West Bank last week was likely shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by its soldiers, drawing a strong rebuke from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the activist's family.

Israel said a criminal investigation has been launched into the killing of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old activist from Seattle who was taking part in a demonstration against settlements. Doctors who treated Eygi, who also held Turkish citizenship, said she was shot in the head.

Blinken condemned the “unprovoked and unjustified” killing when asked about the Israeli inquiry at a news conference in London. “No one should be shot while attending a protest,” he said. “The Israeli security forces need to make some fundamental changes in the way they operate in the West Bank.”

Eygi's family in the U.S. released a statement saying “we are deeply offended by the suggestion that her killing by a trained sniper was in any way unintentional. The disregard shown for human life in the inquiry is appalling.”

During Friday's demonstration, clashes broke out between Palestinians throwing stones and Israeli troops firing tear gas and ammunition, according to Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli protester who witnessed the shooting of Eygi.

Pollak said the violence had subsided about a half hour before Eygi was shot, after protesters and activists had withdrawn several hundred meters (yards) away from the site of the demonstration. Pollak said he saw two Israeli soldiers mount the roof of a nearby home, train a gun in the group’s direction and fire, with one bullet hitting Eygi.

Israel said its inquiry into Eygi’s killing “found that it is highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by (Israeli army) fire which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot.” It expressed its “deepest regret” at her death.

International Solidarity Movement, the activist group Egyi was volunteering with, said it “entirely rejects” the Israeli statement and that the “shot was aimed directly at her.”

The killing came amid a surge of violence in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, with increasing Israeli raids, attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis, attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians and heavier military crackdowns on Palestinian protests.

Israel says it thoroughly investigates allegations of its forces killing civilians and holds them accountable. It says soldiers often have to make split-second decisions while operating in areas where militants hide among civilians. But human rights groups say soldiers are very rarely prosecuted, and even in the most shocking cases — and those captured on video — they often get relatively light sentences.

The Palestinian Authority held a funeral procession for Eygi in the West Bank city of Nablus on Monday. Turkish authorities said they are working on repatriating her body to Turkey for burial in the Aegean coastal town of Didim, as per her family’s wishes.

Eygi's uncle said in an interview with the Turkish TV channel HaberTurk that she kept her visit to the West Bank secret from at least some of her family members. She said she was traveling to Jordan to help Palestinians there, he said.

"She hid the fact that she was going to Palestine. She blocked us from her social media posts so that we would not see them,” Yilmaz Eygi said.

The deaths of American citizens in the West Bank have drawn international attention, such as the fatal shooting of a prominent Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, in 2022 in the Jenin refugee camp.

Several independent investigations and reporting by The Associated Press determined that Abu Akleh was likely killed by Israeli fire. Months later, the military said there was a “high probability” one of its soldiers had mistakenly killed her but that no one would be punished.

In January 2022, Omar Assad, a 78-year-old Palestinian-American, died of a heart attack after Israeli troops at a checkpoint dragged him from his car and made him lie facedown, bound, temporarily gagged and blindfolded. The military ruled out criminal charges and said it was reprimanding one commander and removing two others from leadership roles for two years.

The U.S. had planned to sanction a military unit linked to abuses of Palestinians in the West Bank but ended up dropping the plan.

The deaths of Palestinians who do not have dual nationality rarely receive the same scrutiny.

Human rights groups say Israel military investigations into Palestinians' deaths reflect a pattern of impunity. B’Tselem, a leading Israeli watchdog, became so frustrated that in 2016 it halted its decades-long practice of assisting investigations and called them a “whitewash.”

Last year, an Israeli court acquitted a member of the paramilitary Border Police charged with reckless manslaughter in the deadly shooting of 32-year-old Eyad Hallaq, an autistic Palestinian man in Jerusalem’s Old City in 2020. The case had drawn comparisons to the police killing of George Floyd in the United States.

In 2017, Israeli soldier Elor Azaria was convicted for manslaughter and served nine months after he killed a wounded, incapacitated Palestinian attacker in the West Bank city of Hebron. The combat medic was caught on video fatally shooting Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, who was lying motionless on the ground.

That case deeply divided Israelis, with the military saying Azaria had clearly violated its code of ethics, while many Israelis — particularly on the nationalist right — defended his actions and accused military brass of second-guessing a soldier operating in dangerous conditions.

Associated Press reporters Matthew Lee and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s Gaza coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

This undated family photo provided by the International Solidarity Movement on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, shows Aysenur Ezgi Eygi of Seattle. (Courtesy of the Eygi family/International Solidarity Movement via AP)

ADDS WITNESS SAYS: Two fellow activists of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who a witness says was fatally shot by Israeli soldiers while participating in an anti-settlement protest in the West Bank, carry posters with her name and photo during Eygi's funeral procession in the West Bank city of Nablus, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)