Matter of Fact Closes $6 Million Funding Round
Matter of Fact has closed its second round of funding, to the tune of $6 million.
The brand, founded by Paul Baek in 2021, closed a round of additional funding with participation from Horizon Ventures and Cowboy Ventures, in addition to James and Nicky Hilton Rothschild, as well as Birchbox cofounder Hayley Barna.
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That brings Matter of Fact’s total funding to $16 million. The company raised $10 million in seed funding in 2021.
Matter of Fact currently only has two products, and sells directly on its website. The brand launched with a 20 percent vitamin C serum, which boasts two years of shelf stability due to a patent-pending delivery system, and also sells a moisturizer.
The brand’s primary focus has been fueling innovation, including various patent-pending technologies. “We’re about a year and a half old, and we’ve been investing a lot of our time and energy into product development, testing and looking at new delivery systems and technologies. It’s been all about the product,” Baek said. “We have two skus but more coming later this year, growing the team, and we’re focusing on the foundations.”
Each product is formulated in-house, a process which Baek said breeds innovation but can also be time-consuming. “The pros and the cons of formulating in-house are that you can take as much time as you need, but you may end up spending more time on product development,” Baek said.
Baek has 10 patent-pending technologies, spanning a slew of concerns from sensitivity, acne, redness and antioxidant defense. “The technical piece [of the business] is the infrastructure that I started building out first — in the first two and a half years, there wasn’t anything else,” Baek said.
Although the launch cadence has been measured, Baek has taken the long view in growing the brand’s assortment. “We’re a beauty brand, but we have a very heavy bend toward product and innovation. I work with investors that understand and value our intense focus on product development and innovation and who think of that as being fun instead of idealistic,” Baek said, adding that current stakeholders “understand the timeline that’s required to make a strong brand with excellent products.”
The latest infusion will also be aimed at growing Baek’s team across different functionalities. “I’m making sure we can build and hire a team that can take on the challenges of a business that may grow quickly — having key operations in marketing, in creative, all of those areas. Some of those got built out earlier than others,” he said.
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