New Incubation Ventures (NIV)

Overview

New Incubation Ventures (NIV) is the strategic early-stage investing and incubation arm for The Estée Lauder Companies, focusing on the beauty industry. NIV partners with forward-thinking founders and entrepreneurs to create, fund, and support emerging beauty brands and business models that will shape the future of beauty. Through this, it builds an actionable pipeline of diversified brands and new engines of growth for The Estée Lauder Companies' portfolio. NIV's investment scope spans the prestige beauty sector, including skincare, makeup, fragrance, and hair care, with an explicit filter for forward-thinking founders. NIV explicitly targets early-stage and pre-launch beauty brands, setting it apart from the parent company's historical M&A strategy of acquiring scaled beauty labels. The fund writes first checks into nascent beauty brands, signaling a posture of building rather than buying the future beauty portfolio. NIV has invested in companies such as Kiki World, a beauty brand, and Melt Season, a Chinese fragrance brand. The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. is one of the world’s leading manufacturers and marketers of quality skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products. The company’s products are sold in approximately 150 countries and territories under brand names including Estée Lauder, Aramis, Clinique, Lab Series, Origins, M·A·C, La Mer, Bobbi Brown, Aveda, Jo Malone London, Bumble and bumble, Darphin Paris, TOM FORD BEAUTY, Smashbox, AERIN Beauty, Le Labo, Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle, GLAMGLOW, KILIAN PARIS, Too Faced, Dr.Jart+, and the DECIEM family of brands, including The Ordinary and NIOD.

Investment Focus

• Innovative beauty concepts
• Strong brand identity
• Scalable business models
• Experienced founding teams
• Alignment with The Estée Lauder Companies' values

Portfolio Companies