Huda Beauty

Huda Catan was a Dubai-based makeup artist, writing a beauty blog in 2010. Seven years later, her self-funded cosmetics company was valued at an estimated $1.2 billion. Huda trained as a finance professional at the University of Michigan before switching careers into makeup artistry. She started the blog Huda Beauty as a reviews and tutorial site in 2010. By 2013, she had built an audience of over a million Instagram followers, most organically, and launched her first product, a set of false eyelashes through Sephora in Dubai, with thousands of dollars in savings. The lashes sold out in days. Over the following five years, the brand added lipsticks, eyeshadow palettes, and foundation without taking outside capital until TSG consumer partners bought a minority stake in 2017 at that billion dollar valuation.