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Ruka Hair, the UK-based BioTech beauty brand making ethically-sourced alternatives to conventional hair extensions, has closed a $4.5 million funding round. The round was co-led by Henkel Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of the German conglomerate behind haircare giants Schwarzkopf and got2b, and Freedom Trail Capital, a US-based firm whose portfolio includes Issa Rae’s Sienna Naturals and Kevin Hart’s VitaHustle.
Other institutional participants include Big Issue Invest and Backed VC. The funding also saw participation from angel investors, including Olympic medallist Dina Asher-Smith, Beautycon and angel investor Sophia Dennis, Africa-first investor and serial entrepreneur Nana Otedola, and Patricia B., a beauty entrepreneur and YouTuber with more than five million subscribers.
The raise brings the company’s total funding to $10 million. The funding will be used for research and development, toxicology and safety testing, and a push into the United States, where the brand is scheduled to enter a major retailer later this year.
The capital will be deployed across three priorities, says co-founder and CEO Tendai Moyo. First, Ruka will invest in research and development for its alternative hair extensions, alongside deeper investment in toxicology and safety testing, an area Moyo believes has been systematically overlooked across the hair extension industry. Henkel’s expertise could prove valuable here and provide the regulatory and technical infrastructure to address this gap.
Second, the brand will use the funding to accelerate its entry into the US, which Moyo describes as one of the largest and most influential textured hair markets in the world. Freedom Trail Capital’s existing network in the American market is expected to support this expansion.
Third, Ruka will advance its fibre innovation programme. Its latest product, Synths 2, is a patent-pending collagen-based fibre engineered to mimic the look and feel of human hair, while eliminating the plastic fibres and sourcing concerns associated with traditional extensions. “We want Ruka fibres to essentially eradicate the need for human hair on the extensions market,” Moyo told The Business of Fashion.
Ruka Hair was co-founded by Moyo and COO Ugo Agbai during the first wave of COVID lockdown in 2020. The brand came out of their personal frustration with the lack of high-quality extensions suited to their natural hair textures.
Moyo, who was born in Zimbabwe, holds a degree in business, mathematics, and statistics from the London School of Economics and previously worked as a strategy consultant at Bain & Co. Agbai, who has Nigerian roots, studied Bioengineering at Imperial College London and worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co, where she identified a strategic gap in how the personal care industry was serving minority consumers.
In a LinkedIn post, Moyo explains that this raise was not straightforward. She explains securing investment proved more complex than a typical beauty fundraising process, given that Ruka sits at the crossroads of multiple industries.
“Beauty investors understand consumer and retail distribution, and biotech investors understand material science. It’s very difficult to find investors who sit at that intersection,” she said.
