By Chic Brief Editorial
Makeup by Mario reached institutional money in its third year, and the terms of that money say more about the business than the growth claims attached to it. In January 2023, investment firms Provenance and Silas Capital completed a $40 million minority growth investment in the beauty brand founded by makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic [4]. The structure leaves the founder's team in control, and the stated uses are expansion line items: assortment growth at Sephora in North America and abroad, management hiring, and a bigger direct-to-consumer business [4].
Dedivanovic calls it the brand's first round of funding [5], and he ties it to a specific product decision: complexion, a category he calls expensive, saying the first round of funding enabled it. The path to that decision — two decades of artistry, fame as Kim Kardashian's makeup artist from 2008 [5], an exclusive Sephora launch in a pandemic year, just over two years of growth before its first outside funding on record — shows up in dated documents: the launch release, the investment coverage, the channel moves. The growth rates behind it do not; those are the founder's own account.
Two decades of artistry before the brand
The asset that launched this company was a twenty-year career. Dedivanovic started out as a makeup artist at Sephora, and Glossy dates his rise to 2008, when he met Kim Kardashian and became her makeup artist [5]. Consumer-press descriptions of his client list add Jennifer Lopez and Priyanka Chopra [3]. The launch year, 2020, marked his 20th year as a makeup artist, by the company's own count [1]. The release credits him with teaching Masterclasses and with having "taught and popularized the best-known makeup techniques of the last decade" [1]. Those are the company's words about its own founder.
That following was the brand's starting capital.
A 21-product exclusive, launched mid-pandemic
MAKEUP BY MARIO launched on October 1, 2020 [2] as an eyes-and-skin assortment of 21 products and tools, priced from $14 to $48 [1] — prices that run from entry-level tools to prestige-level products. Distribution was exclusive from the start: Sephora, Sephora.com, and the brand's own site [1]. The company promised category expansion beginning in late 2020 and early 2021 [1], and it described the first collection in its own terms: "every shade is universal and created for all human skin tones" [1].
The exclusivity mattered. Every early sale ran through one retail partner and the brand's own site, and that structure is what the 2023 funding later built on.
What the $40 million was for
Complexion was the reason the money arrived when it did, in the founder's telling. "Complexion has always been really important to me, but [launching] complexion is not cheap," Dedivanovic told Glossy. "It's a lot of SKUs and a lot of work to create a complexion collection." He added: "With the first round of funding, we were able to achieve that" [5].
The deal itself is documented. Provenance and Silas Capital completed the $40 million minority growth investment in January 2023 [4], and Global Cosmetics News reported its intended uses: accelerating assortment expansion at Sephora in North America and abroad, augmenting the existing management team, and growing the direct-to-consumer business [4]. Minority growth investment means the investors bought in without taking control; the founder's team stays in place [4]. Alicia Valencia, the brand's global president, pointed to Provenance's e-commerce capabilities and Silas's record in color cosmetics as the partnership's logic [4].
After the money: a U.K. launch and a doubled catalogue
The 2023 record shows where the money went first. The SurrealSkin collection, a foundation and a concealer, launched that year, and Glossy counts the total catalogue at 46 products as of November 2023, more than double the 21-piece launch assortment [5]. In July, the brand launched in Sephora U.K., in stores and online [5]; Glossy also lists Sephora and Kohl's among the brand's channels [5].
The founder's account fills in the demand story. The Ethereal Eyes palette, launched as a 2022 limited edition, sold out within weeks and drew a waitlist he puts above 60,000 before its October 1, 2023 return [5]. His growth claims carry the same byline: "We have doubled our sales each year," a forecast that 2023 will be the brand's most successful year since launch, and a top-10 rank at Sephora North America [5]. The moves are documented; the rates are his numbers.
SurrealSkin: what nine testers recorded
The complexion line's foundation has outside testing on record. PureWow's February 2023 review put it on nine women of different skin tones and types for a few weeks [3]; as of that review's publication, it cost $42 and came in 30 shades [3]. The brand describes the formula as grapeseed oil and squalane plus a MoistureGrip technology it says makes blending easier; the review relays that description along with the positioning: light-to-medium coverage that builds without heaviness [3].
The testers' notes cut both ways. Shade match was the most consistent positive: one tester reported hers "matched my skin tone nicely and was easy to blend," with about seven hours of wear before fading [3]. Another made it her go-to "when I want a dewier look" [3]; a third praised the "natural glow" [3]. The same dewiness worked against some testers — the one with the seven-hour report found that over time her skin "started to look oily" and the makeup "rubbed off at the slightest touch" [3]. Acne and textured spots got less coverage than some testers hoped [3], and application took work: "It's not a foundation to use in a hurry," one wrote [3]. The finish is the common thread: the dewiness that reads as glow on one face reads as shine on another by day's end.
What holds up
Three years of this company's history trace through documents: an October 1, 2020 launch of 21 products at $14 to $48, exclusive to Sephora and the brand's own site [1]; the January 2023 investment with named investors and stated uses [4]; a July U.K. launch and a catalogue at 46 products by November 2023 [5]. The product layer carries outside testing, with results on both sides of the finish question [3]. What stays with the founder is the growth story: doubled sales each year, a top-10 Sephora rank, a 60,000-name waitlist [5]. What the documents establish is the shape: a two-decade reputation converted into a brand, distribution anchored in Sephora from day one, and outside capital arriving when the assortment moved into complexion, a category its founder calls costly to build. The sales figures remain his account; the structure behind them is on the record. The documented trail ends in November 2023; beyond it sits the company's stated plan to expand the Sephora assortment further abroad, the one promise in this story later news can check first.