Eyeko eyes markets for expansion

SHE'S hot, she's funky and her cosmetics are worn by stars from Kylie Minogue to Zoë Ball. So says the publicity blurb about Eyeko, the fictional cybergirl character fronting fledgling make-up brand eyebeauty.com.

Launched in London last year with £1m by the man who introduced Hard Candy nail polish to Britain, eyebeauty.com has just appointed advisers to tap the markets for £5m expansion capital.

Eyebeauty's upmarket products for teenage girls are already on the shelves of British department stores such as Selfridges and House of Fraser, as well as Top Shop and other major chains. Boutiques in Germany and the Galeries Lafayette store in Paris are among European stockists, while an appearance in the trendy Los Angeles store Fred Seagal has marked its entry into the US.

But now 27-year-old Max Leykind and his wife Nina Motahar, 30, want to develop the group with a family of brands across the globe, and eventually introduce spin-off products from T-shirts to toasters.

Eyeko is a cartoon character drawn in the Japanese manga comic-book style. She and her cartoon chums have won rave reviews in the teen and fashion Press with product lines such as Eyeko's Electric Gloss and Glitter Body Lotion.

Motahar says: 'One day we want to be like an Estëe Lauder. We have 20 products now, but we have not even begun yet - there's a lot more for us to do.'

Eyebeauty's numbers man is Tor Fvensson, a 38-year-old Dane who is a former vice-president of investment banking at Merrill Lynch in London. He has appointed specialist corporate financier Brask & Co to raise funds from venture capitalists, pension funds and private investors.

Fvensson describes the business as almost a 'virtual' company, employing only a handful of staff at its West End head office and using 100 suppliers to produce its ranges. Sales this year are expected to come in at £350,000, accelerating to £4m in 2002.

Fund managers appeared cautious, however. One City cosmetics analyst said: 'There have been a slew of these kind of brands in recent years, aimed at the upper end of the teen market. Anecdotally, the likes of LVMH's Urban Decay and Hard Candy have been doing very well, but it is a question of how they manage the transition into the bigger league.'

Another was more upbeat: 'All the signs are that this is a growing market, worth about $8bn (£5.5bn) a year in the US alone.'