Jessica Alba's subscription e-commerce startup, The Honest Company, raises $100M at a $1.7B valuation
Honest(ly) Lindsay Blakely / Inc.com : WIRE Jessica Alba's Honest Company Raises $100 Million Clare O'Connor / Forbes : New $100M Honest Co. Round Puts Jessica Alba Among 40 Richest Self-Made Women Steven Loeb / VatorNews : The Honest Company raises $100M, is an IPO coming? Maya Kosoff / Business Insider : Jessica Alba's startup reportedly just raised $100 million at a $1.7 billion valuation Madeline Stone / Business Insider : Go inside the gorgeous offices of Jessica Alba's diaper company, which reportedly just raised …
Context & Ripple Effects
This $100M Series D put The Honest Company at a $1.7B valuation and made Jessica Alba one of Forbes' richest self-made women, with VatorNews immediately asking whether an IPO was next. Six months later the company was indeed working with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on one, per Bloomberg's sources (IPO preparations) — making this round the peak mark in a fast arc.
The arc then bent down: by late 2017, sales were flat after reaching $300M in 2016, the CEO was culling non-core products, and Honest filed to raise $75M at a valuation below $1B — a 57% markdown versus this Series D. The 2018 follow-on, a $200M minority investment from LVMH-affiliated L Catterton earmarked for global expansion, completed the reset from subscription darling to PE-backed brand.
First-order effects
- Honest gains $100M of runway at its highest-ever private valuation, funding scale-up of its subscription diapers-and-household-goods model while fueling near-term IPO speculation around Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
Second-order effects
- Competitors in natural baby and household products now face a celebrity-fronted rival with fresh capital — but the flat 2017 sales that followed force Honest itself to cut products, accept a sub-$1B valuation, and sell a minority stake to L Catterton to fund international expansion instead of listing.
Third-order effects
- The gap between this $1.7B mark and the 2017 filing below $1B is a clean case study in the private valuation–liquidity gap: subscription e-commerce valuations set at peak hype proved unsellable to public markets without broadening into global, multi-channel distribution under private-equity ownership.
The trend: Celebrity-founded consumer subscription startups raised at peak 2015 multiples, then reset through down rounds and private-equity partnerships when flat retention exposed the gap between private marks and exit-ready value.