CODEMINT, Did Estee Lauder Invest in This Chinese Brand?
- Chaileedo Press
- Feb 22, 2023
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 3, 2023
Recently, cyberstar Grace Chow (Zhou Yangqing) revealed through social media that "the investor of her beauty brand CODEMINT is the American Estee Lauder headquarters."
CHAILEEDO found that Grace Chow has 11.03 million followers on Chinese social media Weibo and 2.22 million followers on Instagram. If the news is true, it means that "Estee Lauder Group has invested in the first Chinese makeup brand created by a cyberstar".
(Credit: this picture shows that Grace Chow says the investor of her beauty brand CODEMINT is Estee Lauder's headquarters in the United States.)
Grace Chow posted a video on social media platforms a while ago, saying that "the investor of her personal beauty brand CODEMINT is Estee Lauder headquarters in the United States, and she will go to New York to do a debriefing report to the investor on the development and operation of the brand in the past two years." She also published the first draft of her debriefing report at the end of the video. Grace Chow then posted another video saying, "I received flowers and gifts from MAC as soon as I arrived in New York".
According to public information, CODEMINT is a beauty brand created by Grace Chow in 2021, positioned as clean beauty. It is understood that the well-known beauty OEM COSMAX is an angel investor in CODEMINT, and the brand is also the first beauty start-up brand COSMAX has invested in.
The brand's Tmall flagship shop has 24 SKUs, priced between 78 yuan ($11.3) and 259 yuan ($37.6), with the highest sales of CODEMINT Pre-make-up Coffee Mask priced at 139 yuan ($20.2), with total sales of over 80,000 units.
CHAILEEDO noted that the notes posted on the official account of CODEMINT on Chinese social media Xiaohongshu on 8 November 2022 had mentioned that the brand had received investment from cosmetics giant Estee Lauder Group and COSMAX, the world's number one cosmetics supply chain. In 2022, several media reported in public stating that "CODEMINT is the first direct investment in a Chinese clean beauty brand by the Estée Lauder Group headquarters."
It is reported that the main company of CODEMINT is Hangzhou Jianfa Meixue Technology Co. According to the public information, Grace Chow is the legal person, the largest shareholder, the actual controller and the ultimate beneficiary of Hangzhou Jianfa Meixue Technology Co. COSMAX holds 6.4782% of the shares. On 31 December 2021, CALLA, L.L.C., a U.S. company, contributed 235,300 yuan ($34,142) and held 8.6364% of the shares.
CALLA, L.L.C, the United States enterprise, is an investor in the United States Estee Lauder headquarters, which is rumored by many netizens. As recently as February 18, a user on Xiaohongshu posted, "Is CodeMint invested by Estee Lauder?" Below the post, a netizen replied, "CALLA, L.L.C. is a wholly-owned holding company of EL (Estee Lauder) and Dr. Jert (or "Dr. Jart+"), also a wholly owned holding company of EL (Estee Lauder) was also acquired by this entity."
(Credit: this picture shows that some users on Xiaohongshu said CALLA L.L.C., a wholly-owned holding company of EL (Estee Lauder), is the investor of CODEMINT)
Publicly available information shows that CALLA, L.L.C. was founded on March 31, 1997 and is located in Michigan, USA. It is understood that Estee Lauder Group is headquartered in Manhattan, New York, USA. In addition, when Estee Lauder Group previously acquired Dr. Jart+'s parent company Have & Be Co. Ltd, it did not mention CALLA, L.L.C. as the main company to complete the acquisition of the former. In addition, no connection between CALLA, L.L.C. and the Estée Lauder Group has been identified through public sources.
(Credit: this picture shows that the consumer service of CODEMINT said the brand did get investment of Estee Lauder.)
As for Estée Lauder's investment in CODEMINT, CHAILEEDO contacted the brand owner of CODEMINT, COSMAX China and Estée Lauder respectively for confirmation. In this regard, the customer service of CODEMINT on the flagship store on Tmall said, "Estée Lauder Group did invest in CODEMINT." The assistant general manager of COSMAX (China), Shen Yingjie, said, "It is true that a foreign company has taken a stake in Hangzhou Jianfa Meixue Technology Co., but it is not clear whether it is related to Estee Lauder." Estée Lauder only said the question had been received but had not responded on the matter at press time.
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