Amityville, NY
Tel: 631.842.8800
www.sundialbrands.com

Sales: $200 million (estimated)

Key Personnel: Richelieu Dennis, founder and CEO; Richelyna Hall, chief innovation officer, head of marketing and R&D.

Major Products: Beauty and personal care. Major brands include SheaMoisture and Nubian Heritage.

New Products: Madam C.J. Walker Beauty Culture premium hair care; SheaMoisture—African Water Minter & Ginger Collection, Fruit Fusion Coconut Water Collection, Raw Shea & Cupuaçu Collection, Sacha Inchi Oil Omega 3, 6, 9 Collection, Peace Rose Oil Complex Community Commerce, Mongongo & Hemp Seed Oils High Porosity Collection, Baobab & Tea Tree Oils Low Porosity Collection, Color Cosmetics (Shea Butter Luscisous Lipsticks, Ultra Smooth Long Wearing Eye Pencils, Weightless Shea Serum Foundations  and Wet/Dry Mineral Eyeshadow Palettes), Manuka Honey & Provence Lavender Community Commerce Baby Care; Nubian Heritage—African Black Soap Collection, Coconut & Papaya Collection, Patchouli & Buritie Collection, Abyssinian & Chia Seed  Collection, Indian Hemp & Haitian Vetiver Collection.

Comments: Sundial Brands LLC has been growing fast. Named to the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing firms, industry estimates place this personal care company’s annual revenues around $200 million.

Last September—after 25 years of being a family-owned company—Bain Capital LLC took a minority stake in the company that was founded by CEO Richelieu Dennis.

“While we have been presented several opportunities to be acquired by multinational corporations, we are most excited that our collaboration with Bain Capital fulfills our commitment to remain an independent family-owned and operated company with a purpose-driven business model that puts community at our core,” Dennis said when the news broke.

According to Sundial, Deval Patrick, a managing director at Bain Capital and the former governor of Massachusetts, played an active role in the discussions. He has since joined Sundial’s board of directors.

Sundial hopes to expand its reach even further into the beauty world via a new premium hair care line called Madam C.J. Walker Beauty Culture. This 25-SKU line launched exclusively at Sephora and Sephora.com in March.

Since the very beginning Sundial Brands operates with a spirit of purpose and others, which led to its purpose-driven business model called Community Commerce, which equips underserved people and communities with access to the opportunities and resources that enable them to create lasting value for themselves and others. It results in an ability to build stronger, self-sustaining communities and enterprises.  Last year, it developed women’s empowerment pillars of Entrepreneurship, Education & Equity—or WE3—whereby Community Commerce now invests in underserved women in each of these areas via supplier partnerships, fellowships, scholarships, mentorships and other resources.  This includes the establishment of partnership with Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business Minority Programs to establish the Sundial Brands Fellowship for minority women executives, business owners and entrepreneurs as well as our partnership with Babson College (Sundial’s CEO’s alma mater) for the SheaMoisture #BreaktheWalls Scholarship for top high school young women to attend Babson College’s Summer Study for High School Students. 

With Shea butter central to many of the company’s products, Sundial ethically sources the ingredient from 14 women’s cooperatives in Northern Ghana and currently invests in more than 8,000 women entrepreneurs.

Featuring a blend of rose oils, date palm and camellia leaf extracts, as well as certified organic and fair trade shea butter, the brand’s Peace Rose collection was selected by Target for its  2016 “Made to Matter” program.