Who Owns IPSY?

YouTube beauty creator Michelle Phan co-founded the company in 2011 with Marcelo Camberos, a Funny or Die executive, and Jennifer Jaconetti Goldfarb of Bare Escentuals. Phan drew the original concept from makeup samples sold in vending machines she saw in Thailand. The model was tested through a beta site called myglam.com in November 2011 before launching publicly as ipsy.com in September 2012 after raising $3.8 million in seed and Series A funding.

The Glam Bag, a monthly mailer of deluxe samples and full-size products in a collectible pouch, became the defining product of the beauty subscription wave. IPSY crossed 500,000 subscribers in its first year, built a creator economy around member content, launched the Generation Beauty convention in 2013, and opened Open Studios creator spaces in 2015.

Scale followed. A $100 million investment round cemented unicorn status, and by the late 2010s IPSY had become the largest beauty subscription in the market. The October 2020 acquisition of BoxyCharm for roughly $500 million consolidated the category, creating parent BFA Industries to run both brands. TPG Growth's $96 million investment in February 2022 funded further expansion, including the Refreshments personal care line and the Madeby Collective incubator that launched ITEM Beauty with Addison Rae and Tresluce Beauty with Becky G.

The 2023 consolidation folded BoxyCharm into IPSY's platform, with the tier structure simplified around Glam Bag, BoxyCharm by IPSY, and the quarterly Icon Box. BFA also wound down Madeby Collective to focus on established brand partnerships. Under CEO Galen Smith, appointed September 2024, the current lineup is marketed around personalization through the IPSY Match algorithm, which analyzes member quiz data and product reviews to curate each month's assortment.