Ipsy
Santa Monica, US · 11 known investors
IPSY is a subscription-based beauty membership that delivers monthly boxes of curated cosmetics and beauty products to consumers. It operates a community-driven, personalized beauty discovery service for individual beauty enthusiasts.
Also known as Beauty For All Industries · BFA Industries · IPSY · MyGlam · Personalized Beauty Discovery, Inc.
Founders & leadership
Investors · 11
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Also in the syndicate · 2
Valuation · disclosed
Disclosed eventsSource: SEC prospectus filings, and round valuations the company or its investors disclosed — follow each entry's link for the claim.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026IPSY, operated by Personalized Beauty Discovery, Inc., is a beauty product subscription service that ships curated assortments of makeup, skincare and personal care items to members each month. Subscribers complete a beauty quiz covering preferences such as skin tone, brow color and favorite brands, and the company uses those responses to select products; members can also choose some items in each shipment themselves. Shipments arrive in a collectible Glam Bag or drawstring bag, with billing on the last day of the month for the following month's subscription and shipping roughly two weeks later.
The service is sold in tiers: IPSY Original at $15/month for five deluxe-size samples worth up to $70 (with an annual plan at $171), IPSY Extra at $32/month for five full-size products worth up to $200, and IPSY Ultimate, a quarterly subscriber-only upgrade at $65 for eight full-size products worth up to $400 that replaces the monthly bag in February, May, August and November. Members can hold more than one plan simultaneously. Additional offerings include monthly add-on products starting at $3.50, a members-only IPSY Shop with weekly drops and discounts, and a quarterly Mega Drop Shop with 30–80% off full-size beauty items. Related properties include IPSY Wellness, the IPSY Blog and IPSY México.
The broader group also encompasses BoxyCharm, a full-size product subscription acquired in 2020, and the celebrity-curated quarterly Icon Box, whose past curators have included Gwen Stefani, Lisa Vanderpump and Chrissy Teigen. IPSY has also built in-house and creator-backed brands, including Complex Culture (2019), the Madeby Collective incubator, Refreshments (2020), Item Beauty with Addison Rae (2020) and Treslúce Beauty with Becky G (2021).
Founding story
The concept originated with YouTube beauty creator Michelle Phan, who began posting makeup tutorials in 2007 and reportedly drew the idea from seeing makeup samples sold from vending machines during a trip to Thailand. She co-founded the company in 2011 with Marcelo Camberos, a founding executive at Funny or Die who became CEO, and Jennifer Jaconetti Goldfarb, previously of Bare Escentuals. The business model was first tested in November 2011 through a beta site, myglam.com, offering limited access to monthly Glam Bags.
Business model
Direct-to-consumer recurring subscription: members pay monthly or quarterly fees for curated shipments of beauty products, with US shipping of $1.99 and Canadian shipping of $6.95 (Original) or $9.95 (Extra). Subscriptions renew automatically until cancelled, with cancellation required by the 25th of the month to avoid the next renewal charge. Revenue is supplemented by e-commerce: a members-only IPSY Shop launched in 2017, paid add-on products, quarterly discount events, gift subscriptions, and sales of in-house and incubated brands.
Recurring subscription fees across multiple tiers ($15/month Original, $32/month Extra, $65/quarter Ultimate, $171 annual Original plan) plus member e-commerce sales of discounted beauty products and add-ons.
Traction
Reported subscriber milestones include 500,000 by the end of 2012, one million paid subscribers by March 2015, 2.5 million by April 2017, three million by September 2017 and 4.3 million combined at the 2020 BoxyCharm merger, with approximately 1.5 million monthly subscribers reported more recently. Revenue is reported at roughly $150 million annualized in 2015, $500 million annualized in 2019, $1 billion combined with BoxyCharm in 2020, and approximately $205 million for the online store in 2024. By February 2016 the company worked with 10,000 vloggers contributing one or two videos a month.
Latest developments
After the February 2023 consolidation of BoxyCharm under the IPSY umbrella, BoxyCharm moved from its standalone site to Ipsy.com and adopted IPSY's influencer marketing approach, with the tier structure simplified around Glam Bag, BoxyCharm by Ipsy and the quarterly Icon Box, plus additions such as Power Picks and Beauty Boost. Galen C. Smith was reported as appointed CEO in September 2024, with co-founder Marcelo Camberos as Chairman. The current subscription lineup is marketed as IPSY Original, IPSY Extra and IPSY Ultimate.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Described as the largest beauty subscription service in the United States, and after the BoxyCharm acquisition as the largest beauty subscription platform, with competitors including Birchbox (sold in 2021 in what was widely regarded as a fire sale), Glossybox owner THG, and FabFitFun.
Positioning centers on personalization — quiz-driven curation across hundreds of data points and member choice of some products in each shipment — combined with a large creator network built through no-strings support programs such as Open Studios, where creators retained full control of their channels and content with no contractual obligation to the company.
Technology
Personalization is based on a beauty quiz and subscriber data; reporting describes the company processing over 500 data points per subscriber per month and allocating roughly 12 million products per year in matching members to samples.
Go-to-market
Growth is driven largely by influencer and paid social marketing. Roughly 80% of influencer marketing spend goes to Meta platforms, 10% to TikTok and 10% to other channels including YouTube; the company runs about 20–30 paid creator partnerships per month spanning micro-influencers to celebrity mega-influencers, and operates gifting programs with thousands of content creators (about 3,500 combined after the BoxyCharm consolidation). Meta is treated as the conversion channel with limited-time sign-up offers, while TikTok serves upper-funnel awareness; TikTok ranked second behind Meta in a post-purchase survey of how customers heard about IPSY. The company also invests in creator infrastructure, including Open Studios in Santa Monica (2015) and a 20,000-square-foot content studio in Los Angeles (2019), and in blog content for SEO.
Consumers interested in discovering and buying beauty, makeup, skincare and personal care products, particularly audiences reached through YouTube, TikTok and Meta beauty content creators.
Geography
Subscriptions are available to members in the U.S., U.S. territories, Canada and Mexico, with a dedicated IPSY México property. Headquarters is reported as San Mateo, California; the company has operated creator studios in Santa Monica and Los Angeles.
History
Founded in 2011 as MyGlam, the company relaunched publicly as ipsy.com in September 2012 after raising $3.8 million in seed and Series A funding, reportedly crossing 500,000 subscribers in its first year. It launched the Generation Beauty convention in May 2013 and Open Studios, a creator co-working and production space in Santa Monica, in May 2015. A $100 million Series B from TPG Growth and Sherpa Capital followed in September 2015 at an approximately $800 million valuation. An e-commerce section for subscribers launched in September 2017; membership tiers expanded with Glam Bag Plus in 2018 and Glam Bag Ultimate in 2019, the latter replaced in November 2020 by the quarterly Glam Bag X, later renamed Icon Box. In-house brand Complex Culture launched in 2019, followed by the Madeby Collective incubator, Refreshments (2020), Item Beauty with Addison Rae (2020) and Treslúce Beauty with Becky G (2021). In October 2020 IPSY acquired BoxyCharm for about $500 million, mostly in stock, creating parent company BFA Industries with 4.3 million subscribers and $1 billion in combined annual revenue. BFA Industries raised a further $96 million from TPG Growth in February 2022, and in February 2023 the two brands consolidated under the IPSY name.
Risks & controversies
Reported figures indicate a decline from peak scale, with subscribers falling from 4.3 million combined in 2020 to roughly 1.5 million monthly and online store revenue of about $205 million in 2024. Co-founder Michelle Phan withdrew from public life in 2016 after a decade of content creation, later describing burnout from running the business and maintaining a public image; she subsequently left IPSY to focus on EM Cosmetics. The Wikipedia entry on the company carries maintenance notices for possible original research and promotional content.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 16
launches, deals, and filingsBoxyCharm moved from its standalone site to Ipsy.com, adopted Ipsy's influencer marketing playbook, and the tier structure was simplified to Glam Bag, BoxyCharm by Ipsy and Icon Box, with new options including Power Picks and Beauty Boost.
$96M source ↗
Members-only quarterly upgrade offering 7-8 full-size products, later renamed Icon Box.
Acquisition paid mostly in stock, forming parent company BFA Industries with 4.3 million subscribers and $1 billion in combined annual revenue.
$500M source ↗
Madeby Collective collaboration with the TikTok personality.
Added a tier combining full-size products and deluxe samples, and launched first in-house brand, Complex Culture, precursor to the Madeby Collective incubator.
Second membership tier offering full-size products; later renamed BoxyCharm after the merger.
Online shop offering beauty products at reduced prices to subscribers.
$100M source ↗
Video production co-working space providing equipment, editing suites and mentoring for creators, who retained full control of their content with no obligation to Ipsy.
First live event, an annual beauty convention bringing together cosmetics companies, bloggers and the public.
Initial business model tested via myglam.com, offering limited access to monthly Glam Bags.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Ipsyipsy.com · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Ipsy do?
- IPSY is a US beauty subscription service delivering personalized monthly bags of makeup and skincare products.
- Who founded Ipsy?
- Ipsy was founded by Marcelo Camberos, Jennifer Goldfarb, Marcelo Camberos (IPSY), Michelle Phan.
- Who are Ipsy's investors?
- Ipsy's investors include 500 Global, ACME Capital, Amino Capital, Bullpen Capital, Crosscut Ventures, Graph Ventures, Omega Venture Partners, Sherpa Ventures and 1 more.
- Where is Ipsy headquartered?
- Ipsy is headquartered in Santa Monica, US.