“Hailey is more than a celebrity; she is the most thoughtful founder and has great strategic instinct. She has gone from zero to $212 million in net sales in less than three years, direct-to-consumer only, with only 10 products. [Bieber and the Rhode team] disrupted beauty, and I can think of no better brand that also aligns with our vision,” Amin says. The deal will comprise $800 million in cash and stock, as well as an earn-out consideration of $200 million based on future brand growth over a three-year timeframe.

Following the brand’s inception in 2022, Rhode has grown rapidly, thanks to highly shareable product aesthetics, and also cultivated a world beyond products with the lip gloss phone case, travelling photobooth, and pop-ups, alongside the sheer influence of the founder herself. In 2024, Bieber drove $400 million in earned media value (EMV), with an engagement rate of 3.75%, surpassing the 3.6% industry benchmark, according to influencer marketing platform Lefty. (EMV is the equivalent advertising spend required to generate the same number of impressions gained via social media.)

Speaking to the brand’s growth, Bieber says: “The success comes down to a combination of things that my team and I have set out to execute from the beginning. We’ve been very strategic about product, marketing, and creating tasteful, exciting experiences that are outside of the box. I don’t want to be like anybody else.”

Rhode’s retail debut at Sephora last week also boosted the brand’s credibility outside of Bieber’s sphere of influence. This shifted the brand beyond its direct-to-consumer (DTC) roots, setting it up to maximize sales, according to experts. Both Bieber and Amin say they will be doubling down and focusing on the retail rollout as part of the retail and distribution strategy lined up for the year.

The partnership is particularly notable given the cautious and subdued mergers and acquisitions (M&A) landscape of the past few years. With strategic buyers and equity investors largely focused on managing performance amid geopolitical tension, inflationary pressure, and wavering consumer confidence, few billion-dollar deals have emerged since the 2019-2022 boom period — the era that saw the big-swing acquisitions of Tom Ford Beauty, Deciem, Kylie Cosmetics, Morphe, and more.

Since then, industry experts say that inflated valuation expectations have contributed to a slowdown in significant deals. Against this backdrop, Rhode’s billion-dollar sale not only positions it as an outlier but signals real and robust value creation, while serving as a catalyst for renewed M&A appetite — a bet Amin is standing behind.

“What gave us the conviction for a billion-dollar deal is Hailey and Rhode’s track record, and what they’ve been able to build and achieve with such a level of conviction and depth with their community and in the market. But, the thing that truly made us interested is that she is a fellow disruptor, and that gives me a lot of confidence when I’m looking at a long-term M&A environment,” says Amin. The CEO hopes that Elf Beauty will help maximise the brand’s dollar share, given its 20-year industry expertise and 25 consecutive quarters of growth, as well as expand the brand into new territories (Bieber referenced demand for Rhode in markets such as Brazil). “We’ll thoughtfully and sequentially (following the Sephora launch) take the brand around the world because it belongs everywhere,” he adds.