In food and beverage, brands like Clif Bar and Gatorade were built to cater to athletes\u2019 needs and then became mainstream; the same is true for Lululemon and Athleta. But in beauty, no one has approached products this way. This is the thesis for a new brand called Forta, a play on \u201cfor the active.\u201d <\/p>\n
Its co-founders are college friends Sarah Guller, a veteran investor with experience at firms including TCG \u2014 whose past investments include Oura and Vuori \u2014 and Lexie Hull, a guard for the Indiana Fever. Forta launched on Tuesday with one product: the $25 Lock & Go Setting Spray.<\/p>\n
The duo has been working on the brand for over two-and-a-half years, noting that it took that long just to nail down the formula and the misting mechanism. As an investor, Guller said, \u201cI was seeing hundreds of brands \u2026 [but] there was nothing really built around the ideas of lasting and just working,\u201d she said, referencing the brand\u2019s high-performance proposition.<\/p>\n
Hull said that, to date, she\u2019s been disappointed with makeup\u2019s ability to hold up through her games. \u201cI would get ready [with] a full face of makeup for a game, then warm up for 30 minutes an hour before the game, and it would already be off, on a towel or a jersey. Or if there\u2019s a little bit left on my face, it [gets] on someone else\u2019s jersey, which is even more embarrassing.\u201d<\/p>\n
To create something different, the brand used polymers designed to combat sweat, specifically, Guller said. \u201cA lot of long-wear<\/a> products are optimizing for [being] waterproof or just for movement,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n To promote the brand, Guller and Hull plan to lean into Hull\u2019s network of athletes. \u201cWe\u2019re seeding to athletes who wear makeup, having them use it in their routines and post it on their stories,\u201d Hull said. In addition to gifting product to \u201cbasically the entire WNBA,\u201d the brand plans to also gift to gymnasts, soccer players and volleyball players, in part through a platform called Faves, which Hull likened to ShopMy for pro athletes. <\/p>\n The founders are also building early buzz on TikTok, primarily through their own profiles. Guller, who has just under 17,000 followers, teased the brand\u2019s concept in a post<\/a> offering PR packages to commenters, which garnered nearly 11,000 responses. Hull, who has over 261,000 followers, shared a similar post<\/a>, noting that 100 people with \u201cthe best comments\u201d would be selected at random to receive the brand\u2019s first PR package.<\/p>\n Though athletes are key to the launch strategy, the co-founders stressed they don\u2019t want their brand to be solely for athletes. \u201cThat\u2019s ultimately a pretty niche market,\u201d Guller said.<\/p>\n