Glossier
Consumer/beautyUSA
New to Unitard
✂️ Markdown
Peak $1.8 BillionToday
~-45%
from peak
- 🦄Became a unicorn2019
- 📈Peak valuation$1.8 Billion ’21
- 💔Became a Unitard~2023
- 💸Last valuation~$990M
Current status
PitchBook est. $983M (Dec 2025); reportedly raising sub-$1B
The rise & fall
7 moments · 2010–2025The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
2010
2010
Starts as a beauty blog
Emily Weiss's Into the Gloss builds the audience; the Glossier product line follows in 2014.
Wikipedia
2019
2019
Joins the unicorn club$1.2B
A Sequoia-led $100M Series D values the millennial-pink DTC brand at $1.2B.
TechCrunch
2021
2021
The peak: $1.8B$1.8B
A Series E crowns the direct-to-consumer beauty darling at $1.8B.
TechCrunch
2022
2022
Layoffs, then the founder steps back
Corporate cuts land, and Emily Weiss hands the CEO job to Kyle Leahy as the DTC-only playbook stalls.
CNBC
2023
2023
The DTC purist goes wholesale
Glossier lands in Sephora — growth, but a U-turn for a brand built on selling direct.
CNBC
2023
2023
Slips out of the club
PitchBook's model marks the brand at about $983M (end of 2025) — roughly 45% below peak — with reports of a sub-$1B raise.
CNBC
2022–25
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2022–25
Employee reviews traced the strain from 2022 on: layoffs and turnover that left remaining staff covering departed colleagues' work, with corporate reviewers citing shifting strategy and executives they saw as out of touch — down to friction over the Sephora push.
💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.
How it happened
Glossier is a digitally native beauty brand that reached a roughly $1.8B valuation in a 2021 funding round after building a strong direct-to-consumer following. After layoffs and a strategic shift toward wholesale (including Sephora), PitchBook's model put it at about $983M at the end of 2025 (roughly 45% below peak), alongside reports of a sub-$1B raise.
Source: PitchBook model estimate as of Dec 31, 2025 (CNBC's fallen-unicorn table, Jun 2026), not a priced round
Founder
Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-08-19. See our methodology.
