Kimberley Ho, 35, spent her early career in finance, first at Goldman Sachs and then at the asset management firm Oaktree, before walking away to start a skincare company aimed at an audience most of the beauty industry had largely ignored, babies, children, preteens, and pregnant mothers. That company, Evereden, now brings in 100 million dollars a year and became profitable last year.
Ho grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the child of entrepreneurs, before studying economics at Stanford. She launched Evereden in 2017 and formally founded the company in 2018, building it out of New York. Her pitch was simple. Billions of investment dollars have gone to women's beauty, cosmetics and skincare, she has said, but none of that innovation and investment really went into family skincare.
Growth came in stages. Evereden crossed 1 million dollars in revenue within its first few years, and starting in 2021 began launching around 10 new products a year, moving from concept to shelf in 3 to 6 months, well under the roughly 18 month cycle common across the beauty industry. Direct to consumer sales online remain the biggest piece of the business, with Amazon becoming its fastest growing channel since 2021. The brand is already carried by Sephora in 8 countries including Canada, Australia, and the Philippines, though it has not yet landed in Sephora or Ulta stores in the United States.
Behind the products sits a scientific team built to justify the premium price tag on something meant for young or sensitive skin. Dr Joyce Teng, who heads pediatric dermatology at Stanford Medical School, serves as Evereden's chief science officer, joined by additional doctors from Harvard Medical School, alongside an in house lab staffed with chemists and researchers. The company has secured FDA approval for its sunscreen and for an over the counter eczema product, and Ho describes the culture behind it simply as product obsessed is in our DNA.
The bet on younger customers lines up with broader shifts in the beauty market. Sephora's customer base aged 9 to 12 has doubled over the past five years, and Gen Alpha, the generation born after 2010, now interacts with beauty products for the first time at an average age of 8, compared with 12 for Gen Z and 15 for younger Millennials. The global market for children's cosmetics was valued at 1.6 billion dollars in 2024. To fund its growth, Evereden raised about 40 million dollars in venture capital between 2018 and 2021, including a 32 million dollar Series C round led by GSR Ventures in 2021, after an initial seed round led by the Texas based firm Sidekick Partners.
Ho, a member of Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2019, describes Evereden's position in the market in terms of range rather than a single hit product, with no item making up more than 20 percent of total sales. We are a multi category, multi generational brand, she has said, which I think is unique on the market. As younger shoppers keep showing up earlier in beauty aisles, that range looks less like a hedge and more like the plan all along.