Case 50 — Rare Beauty · Selena Gomez · 2026

Your growth has flattened inside one retailer and the buyers would not meet your price. Do you give up the exclusivity that made you special, or find growth somewhere you already are?

It is the end of 2025. Your makeup brand launched five years ago as a Sephora exclusive and grew faster than almost any celebrity brand before it — past $400 million of net sales within about three and a half years, on reporting from Bloomberg. Then it stopped. Trade estimates put sales at roughly $400 million in 2024 and roughly $400 million again in 2025. Last year you let bankers test a sale at about $2 billion and no buyer would pay it. In October you said publicly that you are not ready to sell. Meanwhile Rhode, a three-year-old founder brand, has just sold to e.l.f. for about 3.8 times sales, and on that multiple your company is worth closer to $1.5 billion than $2 billion. Sephora is your only retail partner and treats you as one of its signature brands. Ulta Beauty, with more than 1,500 American stores and a customer who often does not shop at Sephora, would like to carry you.

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