Despite only being four years old, buzzy newcomer K18 has plans to become the global leader in biology-first hair care – and now has some serious firepower behind it to achieve this goal.
The US biomimetic hair science range, founded in 2020 by Britta Cox and Suveen Sahib, has disrupted the bond repair category space with its keratin-oriented technology, achieving four times growth since launch and one product now sold every 15 seconds worldwide.
K18 holds the global exclusive licence for the keratin genome, leading to the creation of the brand’s trademarked molecule K18Peptide, which it says shuttles amino acids – the building blocks of hair – into the inner structure of tresses.
Once inside the hair cortex, it goes directly to broken disulfide bonds to replace lost amino acids, which K18 says restores hair health and resilience.
“We recalibrated the limited narrative construct from bond repair to molecular repair, and now conversations around molecular repair have grown tremendously, and that is why K18 has become such a phenomenon,” says K18 CEO Sahib.
But the entrepreneur knew he would need to onboard serious industry expertise to take the Gen Z-focused hair care brand to the next level.
This is why the start-up agreed to an acquisition by beauty giant Unilever in January for an undisclosed sum.
We do not create products every season because then you are driving incrementality and mediocrity rather than innovation
Sitting within the British conglomerate’s ten-brand strong Prestige Division, the aim is to accelerate K18’s market growth over the next few years, fuel its entry into the styling category and boost its technological innovations.
“I think Unilever loves our simplicity and how transformation and being community-centric is in our DNA,” says Sahib, explaining that K18 only has a core wardrobe of five products spanning two shampoos, a conditioner, oil and treatment mask.
And ten months in, the CEO is “pleasantly surprised” at how well the partnership is going.
“Usually, as a brand, you get acquired into a larger system and you can get overwhelmed or
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