How it started
History
The company was founded in 1999 by Kate Morris, a 21-year-old business student, and her boyfriend James Height. Morris used savings and an A$12,000 loan from Height's parents to start the business, which she ran out of her garage. She found a company in the newspaper to build the first website, which cost A$8,000 and took six months.
At first, the company only stocked two small Australian brands: Baiame and Santalia. The first mainstream brand, Bloom, signed on in 2002. Clarins signed on in 2006.
The company had a $2 million turnover by the end of 2010. In 2014, the company secured a deal with Estee Lauder Companies to become an authorized agent for Clinique, Bobbi Brown and Estee Lauder brands. That same year, the company earned over $7 million in revenue and ranked 29th in the Smart Company ‘Smart50’ Awards. Morris won the Innovation Award for Victoria in the 2014 Telstra Women's Business Awards.
In 2015, the Australian conglomerate Woolworths bought a 25% stake in the company for an undisclosed sum. The investment grew the company 70% over one year. The company reported an annual turnover of $16 million in 2016, carrying 150 brands and 10,000 products. The company is an official online stockist of Dermalogica, ghd, Clarisonic, Lancôme, Benefit Cosmetics, Aesop and Kérastase. The company's Findation service, which compares 22,000 foundations to find the best match, had 1.5 million users, as of 2015.
In 2016, the company began expanding into China by launching a digital shop front on Tmall. In 2017, Morris bought back Woolworths' 25% stake in the business, restoring full ownership to her. Morris and Height were co-CEOs until 2018 when Height became the sole CEO.
From Wikipedia’s article on Adore Beauty, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2