Will Kennedy and Adrian Gilbane first discussed male hair loss over a beer in London. It was the summer of 2018 and they were two friends from Ireland who were both starting to go thin on top. “We’d both gone to the same hair restoration clinic by coincidence around the same time and we had the same frustrations,” Kennedy recalled.

Gilbane was a scientist with a degree in pharmacology from UCD and a doctorate from University College London. The Monaghan native had worked as a research scientist with Novartis and on life sciences deals in EY so he understood the science behind why hair fell out, and what could be done to restore or delay its loss. He also had an interest in business, and how to make money from healthcare.

Kennedy was a UCC commerce graduate who had worked in Bord Bia before spending a six-year stint with the Kerry Group. He understood how to build a brand and grow into international markets selling regulated products. “So that’s how it started,” Kennedy said. “We shared the lived experience of hair loss and we realised we had the business skills to do something about it.”

“We had complementary backgrounds, and we were really passionate about solving this problem,” Gilbane added. The result was a hair-loss treatment company called Sons, which raised €6.75 million in November in a mix of equity and debt to expand into Europe.

But who is backing them? And how big are the two founders’ ambitions?

Experienced investors

Robert Power is best known as being one of the driving forces behind financial services group Cornmarket, which Irish Life & Permanent bought out over a number of years in an €88 million deal. Power is a co-owner of Image Publications, a print and digital publisher which also runs events and a club for businesswomen.

Gilbane knew Power via the veteran entrepreneur’s daughter, who is married to one of his friends. “We had a connection, which was enough to get in front of Robert,” Kennedy explained. “A lot of our investors were connections or connections of connections.”

Power became a mentor to the two founders and he agreed to become Sons’ chairman. Quietly, Sons raised a €1 million seed round to test their ideas around selling scientifically-proven products as a subscription service with sleek branding and a smooth technology-driven user experience that was scalable. 

Experienced investors Dr Ray Stafford and Diarmuid Burke also came on board. Stafford is best known as the former chairman and chief executive of the Tosara Group, the company behind Sudocrem, which later became part of New York Stock Exchange-listed Forest Laboratories. Burke was previously vice president of global operations of Forest Labs and both men were early investors in Amryt Pharma, which was sold for $1.48 billion in January. 

“Ray and Diarmuid were a validation from a consumer healthcare angle,” Kennedy said. “They saw the opportunity so they both invested among a number of other private investors, most of them in Ireland, in us.” Dean Aragón, the former global vice president of Unilever’s hair division House of Salon, also came in as a strategic investor. 

With its seed round raised, Sons took about a year to have the required licences in place to start trading. “We launched in 2020 with four products,” Kennedy recalled. Initially, Sons sold directly to the consumer in Britain. “We could see a product market fit pretty quickly,” Kennedy said. “After 12 months we were doing more than £200,000 MRR (monthly recurring revenue) so we knew that the model was good and had much more potential.” Sons now had the confidence to look at new markets, so it set about getting licences to sell in Ireland and Germany, which it obtained in 2022.

About 18 months ago, it raised a convertible loan note which then became part of a larger €6.75 million equity and debt raise. The Davy EIIS Fund and existing and new private investors participated in the equity raise with debt financing from AIB and Wayflyer. The round is 70 per cent equity and the remainder debt. “In our first year we broke about €1 million (in sales),” Kennedy said. “Our current run rate is €13 million (per annum). The funding moves us from start-up to scale-up. It is about people, systems, markets – pushing into Germany and replicating what we have already done in the UK.”

Sons entered the German market in September where it is winning about 65 new customers a day. “It is a huge market and the early signs are very positive,” Kennedy said. “It is our big bet for next year, and a lot of the equity we have raised will be used to set up the platform there and help with marketing.”

According to Gilbane, Germany is a complex market from a regulatory perspective so it had partnered with a pharmacy group in the Netherlands to help it service that. “We invested a lot of time before launching ensuring we are fully compliant from a regulatory perspective,” Kilbane said. “We feel we are now in a really good position to launch – and it has also created a good moat (against competitors.)”

A market of millions of men

The NHS estimated that in Britain, eight million people suffer from hair loss. “The majority of people are not being treated and most are not aware that there are treatments,” Gilbane said. Kennedy said Sons’ main demographic was aged between 20 and 40, and he estimated there were up to 3 million people in Ireland and Britain that its products were suitable for. Gilbane said Sons did have competitors, but the largest potential market for Sons was people not currently doing anything about hair loss. “More than 70 per cent of our clients have never used any product before Sons,” he said.

Sons cannot help everyone, he admits. “We focus on the mild to moderate patient. With severe loss, a person may be more suitable for a transplant, but after a transplant it is recommended that you still take treatments to prevent future hair loss. So we can help many people with mild, moderate and even severe hair loss depending where they are.” Gilbane said Sons’ core products were clinically proven, and his research background had helped the business obtain the correct licences to sell them. 

“We saw a lot of other products that didn’t have clinical claims even though they might have been trying to say they did,” Gilbane said. “One of the challenges is that people may have been burned in the past by products that didn’t work. Our mantra is the products must have science behind them and any claim must line up with the product specifically.” 

Some of Sons’ products are prescription-only, while others are pharmacy-only. In both cases, Sons has licences to retail these products in Ireland, the UK and Germany. “We are the only company with the licences to retail these together,” Gilbane said. “What we do differently is we offer a range of treatments. If you take the products individually, they have a certain level of efficacy, up to 70 per cent to 80 per cent with most patients, but when you use those products together with some of our more healthcare-type products, we can get results in over 90 per cent of men.” 

Gilbane said its products did exist elsewhere, but Sons brings it all together in a subscription package. “The fact men get their products every three months also means they’re less likely to run out, so they keep the momentum up and are more likely to get efficacy.” 

Sons has built a technology platform to deliver products. It offers telehealth solutions to allow patients access its subscription products. “In the UK and Germany, we have built a digital-first model with Amazon also being part of our strategy,” Gilbane said. “In Ireland, it is a more traditional model where we focus on bricks and mortar and we have launched with Boots. That is our key focus and strategy in the Irish market.” 

“Trust is such a big element,” Kennedy said. “We try to make the brand relatable and normalised for guys and we try to make it scientific and simple.” Sons uses television advertising as a key route to brand awareness as well as social media, influencers, search engine optimisation and recommendations. 

Sons has big ambitions in the future. “In three years’ time, we want to have the leading position in each of the markets we play in in terms of hair loss,” Kennedy said. “We estimate we will be in probably five European markets at that stage. At a revenue level, there is an opportunity to turnover more than €100 million in this brand. In terms of growth, we have doubled every year.” Sons may need to raise again in the next 18 months, he said.

“We see runway to €20 million in sales to realise our revenue ambition,” he said. Gilbane said Sons may then look at a different type of investor or partner. “At that point it is more likely we might look for a pharmaceutical or strategic type of investor with a consumer healthcare-type background,” he said. “This would be someone who could help bring us into additional markets at a much faster pace.”

Steve Cordiner, who previously worked in private equity with Livingbridge and was formerly head of unquoted investment with Gresham House has come on board as a non-executive director to advise the company. For Kennedy and Gilbane, it is not just about building a business, although that is undoubtedly their focus too.

“This is not about aesthetics,” Kennedy said. “It is about mental health too. We know from talking to our peers how people can get stuck and stressed as they procrastinate about hair loss. We want to say to them, this is the science, and these are your options.”