Prose
New York City, US · 8 known investors
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Also known as Prose Hair
Founders & leadership
Investors · 8
Also in the syndicate · 1
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Prose is a technology-oriented beauty company that sells personalized haircare and skincare. Customers complete an online consultation covering hair type and texture, lifestyle habits, environmental exposure (pollution, UV, humidity, hard water, wind), diet and stress levels, as well as preferences such as vegan, gluten-free or fragrance-free formulations. Each formula is then made to order. At the time of its 2018 Series B, the consultation gathered 135 data points per profile; by June 2023 a startup profile reported that the company examined 85-plus factors when creating a customer's formula.
The custom hair care line launched in January 2018 and was sold nationwide through prose.com and select stylists. Products are produced in the company's own facilities, including a lab in New York City and a Brooklyn facility opened in 2018 that was to house an automated customization system capable of customizing up to 10,000 products per day. Positioning itself against the traditional FMCG model of consumer segmentation and upfront mass production, the company describes an integrated software and supply-chain approach built on first-party data, combining in-house chemists with data engineers who train machine-learning algorithms on customer feedback, and it cites patent-pending AI in its own description.
Founding story
Prose was co-founded in 2017 by Arnaud Plas, previously VP Digital & E-commerce Strategy at L'Oréal, who serves as CEO; Nicolas Mussat, former CTO of Meilleurs Agents, as CTO; and Paul Michaux, VP Product. The founders framed the company as a return to beauty's historical one-to-one approach to making products, arguing that mass production based on consumer segmentation creates customer frustration and environmental waste.
Business model
Direct-to-consumer e-commerce: customers are profiled through an online consultation and receive made-to-order custom haircare and skincare products, with distribution through prose.com and select stylists. Subscription-style repeat purchasing is indicated by the 250,000 active subscribers reported as of August 2022.
Product sales of custom-formulated haircare and skincare, including recurring subscriber revenue; a startup profile reported the company was on pace for $100 million in sales in 2022.
Traction
Around 500,000 consumer profiles and double-digit month-over-month growth as of November 2018; 250,000 active subscribers and a pace of $100 million in 2022 sales as of August 2022; and 3.4 million-plus customer profiles, 400,000-plus five-star reviews and an 84% would-recommend rate as of June 2023, alongside 288,000 Instagram and 50,000 Facebook followers.
Latest developments
As of June 2023, reported metrics included more than 3.4 million customer profiles, over 400,000 five-star reviews and formulas built from 85-plus factors; August 2022 trade coverage referenced the company approaching $100 million in sales and targeting curly-haired customers. The leadership team listed includes CFO Michael Nathenson, CMO Megan Streeter and COO Anthony Perdigao alongside the founders.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Positioned in personalized beauty within what the company described in 2018 as a $200 billion global beauty industry; at that time it characterized itself as one of the fastest-growing hair care brands with double-digit month-over-month growth.
Micro-personalization: made-to-order formulas driven by a data-rich consultation and in-house machine learning, combined with vertically integrated manufacturing that shortens the product iteration cycle relative to the industry's typical three-to-five-year R&D process.
Technology
Online consultation software that collects first-party data on each customer (135 data points at launch scale, later described as 85-plus formulation factors), machine-learning algorithms trained on customer feedback, computer vision models trained partly on customer selfies, and a proprietary automated customization manufacturing system; the company also references patent-pending AI.
Go-to-market
Online direct sales via prose.com nationwide in the United States, supplemented by distribution through select stylists, with brand awareness and loyalty cited as post-Series B priorities.
Consumers seeking personalized hair and scalp care, including those with specific preferences (vegan, gluten-free, fragrance-free) and, per August 2022 press coverage cited in a startup profile, curly-haired customers.
Geography
Headquartered in New York, New York, with a New York City lab and a Brooklyn manufacturing facility; products available nationwide in the United States.
History
Founded in 2017 and based in New York, Prose launched its custom hair care line in January 2018, opened a Brooklyn production facility later that year, and closed an $18 million Series B in November 2018 that brought total funding to $25 million. It subsequently expanded into skincare and reported growing subscriber and customer-profile figures through 2022 and 2023.
Compiled by commissioned research from 6 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.
Competitors · 3
by search overlap
Companies competing with Prose for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Timeline · 5
launches, deals, and filingsProse announced an $18 million Series B financing led by Insight Venture Partners with participation from existing investors Forerunner Ventures, ISAI, Lerer Hippeau Ventures and Correlation Ventures, bringing total funding to $25 million.
$18M source ↗
Nicolas Wittenborn, Principal at Insight Venture Partners, joined Prose's board of directors in connection with the Series B.
Prose opened a facility in Brooklyn, New York approximately three months before its November 2018 Series B announcement; an automated customization infrastructure was planned for deployment there in mid-2019 with capacity to customize up to 10,000 products per day.
Prose launched what it described as the first-ever custom hair oil, which sold out within a few days.
Prose's custom hair care brand launched in January 2018, sold online nationwide via prose.com and through select stylists.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
▸Research sources · 6
primary sources listed
- Proseprose.com · web
6 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Prose do?
- Prose is a New York-based direct-to-consumer beauty company selling made-to-order custom haircare and skincare formulas.
- Who founded Prose?
- Prose was founded by Arnaud Plas, Paul Michaux.
- Who are Prose's investors?
- Prose's investors include Correlation Ventures, Forerunner Ventures, Insight Partners, Isai, ISAI Gestion, Wind Venture, Lerer Hippeau.
- Where is Prose headquartered?
- Prose is headquartered in New York City, US.