Bread Beauty Supply
Maeva Heim grew up in her mother's hair-braiding salon, then watched a multibillion-dollar industry ignore hair like her own. She launched Bread with three products and $2 million before she'd sold a thing.
Maeva Heim grew up around hair. Her mother ran an African hair-braiding salon in Perth, Australia, and Heim spent her childhood in it before going to work inside the beauty industry itself, where she watched a multibillion-dollar business treat hair like her own as an afterthought. When she transitioned from relaxed to natural hair, she couldn’t find a brand that spoke to her, so in 2020 she built one.
Bread Beauty Supply launched with three products, a line of clean basics for curly and textured hair, and became the first Australian brand ever selected for Sephora’s accelerator program, with $2 million in funding before it had sold a single item. It’s since expanded to more than 460 Ulta doors, Selfridges, and Space NK, built by a Black Australian woman who set out to make the products she’d spent her whole life unable to buy.
At a glance:
| Founded | 2020, by Maeva Heim |
| Products at launch | 3, for curl types 3a to 4c |
| First funding | $2 million, pre-launch |
| Milestone | First Australian brand in Sephora’s Accelerate program |
| Positioning | Clean “basics for not-so-basic hair,” textured and curly |
| Sold at | Sephora, Ulta (460+ doors), Space NK, Selfridges, Farfetch |
The Story
Raised in a braiding salon
Heim’s education in hair started long before her career did. Her mother’s African hair-braiding salon in Perth was the backdrop to her childhood, a place where she absorbed both the craft and the culture of hair care from the inside. That upbringing gave her something no market-research deck could: a lived understanding of a customer the beauty industry consistently overlooked.
The insider who saw the gap
Heim went on to work inside the beauty industry, learning how the machine actually built and sold products. What she kept noticing was the absence of herself in it. When she transitioned from relaxed to natural hair, she went looking for clean, well-made products designed for her curl pattern and found the shelves either empty or full of afterthoughts. The gap she’d felt her whole life was still there, and now she knew exactly how to fill it.
Three products, $2 million, and Sephora’s accelerator
Bread launched in 2020 with a deliberately small line of three products, sold on sephora.com and its own site. Before it launched, it had already raised $2 million and been selected as the first Australian brand ever accepted into Sephora’s Accelerate program, the retailer’s incubator for underrepresented founders. That combination, retail credibility and capital, before a single sale, is a rare way to start.
Scaling “basics for not-so-basic hair”
From there Bread expanded fast into physical retail, entering roughly 300 Ulta doors and growing to more than 460, alongside Space NK, Farfetch, and Selfridges, and closed an oversubscribed multimillion-dollar seed round. The pitch never changed: clean, elevated basics for the curly and textured hair the industry had treated as niche.
The Strategy
Serve the hair the giants ignored
Bread’s whole reason to exist was the customer the mass market underserved, curl types 3a to 4c. Building specifically for the overlooked customer is a durable advantage, because that customer has been waiting for someone to take her seriously and rewards the brand that finally does. It’s the same base of loyalty Briogeo and Cécred were built on.
Fewer, better basics
Bread launched with three products, not thirty. Framing the line as “basics” turned restraint into the brand’s identity: a small set of well-made essentials rather than an overwhelming wall of choices. A tight line is cheaper to make, easier to explain, and simpler to fall in love with.
Retail credibility from day one
Rather than build in obscurity and hope for a retail deal later, Heim used Sephora’s accelerator to launch with prestige distribution and capital already in place. Starting inside a credible retailer set the brand’s positioning immediately and gave it a platform most new brands spend years trying to reach.
The Marketing
The founder story is the brand
A Black Australian woman who grew up in her mother’s braiding salon and built the products she could never find is a story that markets itself. Heim’s background gave Bread an authenticity that no campaign manufactures, and it made the brand’s reason for existing legible in a single sentence, the kind of earned media that credentials a brand faster than ads.
Design that looked like nothing else on the shelf
Bread’s branding, minimal, warm, and elevated, deliberately looked less like a drugstore hair aisle and more like a premium pantry staple. In a category that had long defaulted to loud packaging, that restraint made the brand stand out on a Sephora shelf and signaled that textured-hair care deserved the same design respect as luxury skincare.
The Numbers
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2020 | Launches with three products; first Australian brand in Sephora Accelerate |
| 2020 | Enters Sephora at launch with $2M raised pre-launch |
| Later | Expands to ~300, then 460+ Ulta doors, plus Space NK and Selfridges |
| Ongoing | Closes an oversubscribed multimillion-dollar seed round |
Funded before it sold anything: Bread raised $2 million before launch, a rare position that let it start with product, retail, and runway all at once. The later oversubscribed seed round reflected investor appetite for textured-hair brands that had been underfunded for decades.
Bread is privately held and does not disclose revenue, but its expansion from three products on a website to more than 460 Ulta doors and multiple international prestige retailers is the clearest signal of its trajectory.
What You Can Learn
Build for the customer everyone else overlooks. Bread served curl types 3a to 4c, a huge, loyal, and underserved market. The overlooked customer is often the best business, because she’s been waiting for a brand that takes her seriously. Look for the gap you’ve personally lived.
Your industry experience is a head start. Heim knew how beauty products were built and sold before she built her own. Whatever you learned inside an industry is capital you carry into your own version of it.
Restraint can be the brand. Three products called “basics” is a positioning, not a limitation. A small, well-made line is easier to make, explain, and love than a sprawling catalog.
Start where the credibility is. Launching through Sephora’s accelerator gave Bread prestige and capital on day one. Programs, incubators, and accelerators built for underrepresented founders are real launchpads, not consolation prizes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who founded Bread Beauty Supply?
Maeva Heim, a Black Australian woman who grew up in her mother’s hair-braiding salon in Perth and later worked inside the beauty industry, founded Bread in 2020 after struggling to find clean products for her own curly, textured hair.
What does Bread Beauty Supply make?
Bread makes clean, elevated “basics” for curly and textured hair, curl types 3a to 4c, launching with three products and expanding from there. The brand’s tagline idea is “basics for not-so-basic hair.”
Where is Bread sold?
Bread is sold at Sephora, Ulta (more than 460 doors), Space NK, Selfridges, and Farfetch, as well as its own website. It launched on sephora.com in 2020.
How did Bread get into Sephora?
Bread was the first Australian brand selected for Sephora’s Accelerate program, the retailer’s incubator for underrepresented founders, and launched on sephora.com in 2020 with $2 million in pre-launch funding.
Sources
- BeautyMatter, “Bread Beauty Supply Raises Seed Funding Round”. Founding, 2020 launch, three products, and positioning.
- Beauty Independent, “Bread Beauty Supply Closes Oversubscribed Multimillion-Dollar Seed Round”. Ulta and international retail expansion, seed round.
- Her Agenda, “A Peek Inside Her Agenda: Maeva Heim”. $2 million pre-launch funding and Sephora Accelerate milestone.
- 9Style, “Bread Beauty Supply founder Maeva Heim”. Founder background and the 3a-4c market gap.
- Female Startup Club, “How to Launch into Sephora with Bread Beauty Supply Founder Maeva Heim”. Sephora contract and launch strategy.