Sarah Brown Returned to Pai Skincare, Then HSNF Bought It

Founders who step back from their own brand are rarely invited to step back in. Sarah Brown and her husband Ed Saper were. According to Beauty Independent, they returned to Pai Skincare as interim co-CEOs in November 2025 and “began working to improve the business.” Ten months later, on September 14, 2026, the same outlet reported that Famille C Participations, the investment arm of the Courtin-Clarins family, had sold Pai to HSNF. The price was not disclosed.

At a glance

A skin condition and about $30,000

Brown founded Pai in 2007, according to Beauty Independent, after developing a solution for her own chronic urticaria. Dealroom puts the starting capital at about $30,000 of personal savings; BeautyMatter also dates the founding to 2007. The pitch was a skincare line for sensitive skin, and the company still describes itself as making its products in London.

Outside money came in rounds. Dealroom reports about $13.5 million raised across a Series A and Series B. Then, in 2021, the Courtin-Clarins family’s investment vehicle first invested, and in 2023 it led a £14 million Series C to take a majority stake. That timeline is why the sale is described as arriving roughly four and a half years after Famille C first invested and two and a half years after it took control.

The numbers behind the handover

The most recent figures are for 2024. Beauty Independent and Dealroom both report that revenue rose 17.8 percent to £6.4 million while the pretax loss widened to £6.3 million, from £3.9 million in 2023. Both say Pai has forecast a return to profitability in the first quarter of 2027. We did not open the accounts themselves; Companies House shows full accounts for the year to December 31, 2024 were filed on April 18, 2026, so the underlying numbers are public.

Growth, in other words, was not the problem. Spending was. A brand adding nearly a fifth to sales while losing close to a pound for every pound it sold is the shape of a company that has been funded to scale ahead of its economics.

Beauty Independent also notes that Brown and Saper had stepped back from day-to-day operations by then, and that former Susanne Kaufmann CEO Jessica Clark was Pai’s chief executive when those results were produced. Companies House shows Clark was appointed a director on December 5, 2023 and left the board on January 17, 2025.

What the filings add

The trade press tells the story as a September 2026 sale. The public company record shows ownership moving earlier. These are filings for Pai Skincare Limited (company number 05887401), read directly on Companies House:

• November 17, 2025: Christian and Olivier Courtin ceased to be people with significant control; directors Prisca Courtin, Alexis Cazier and Katalin Berenyi left the board the same day.
• December 11, 2025: Michael Bryce, Roman Maksymenkov and Ben White were appointed directors. Bryce is the name HSNF’s group CEO carries in the press.
• December 12, 2025: a company called Auralux Ventures Limited was registered as holding 75 percent or more of the shares and voting rights, and Brown’s own significant-control entry, previously the 25-50 percent band, ended.
• March 2026: a compulsory strike-off notice was published on March 3 and the action discontinued on March 7.
• October 2026: a confirmation statement “with updates” on October 12, and a change of share-class designation on October 19.

We could not establish from public sources who is behind Auralux Ventures, and nothing we found links it to HSNF by name. The reasonable reading is that effective control of the company passed in late 2025, around the time the founders came back, and that the sale reported in September 2026 is the public confirmation. That is an inference, not a reported fact. What the register does confirm is that Brown is still a director of the company she started.

What the sellers said

Famille C told Beauty Independent: “Over the past four years, Famille C Participations has supported Pai through an increasingly competitive clean beauty landscape.” The statement continued that “the business model transformation now required calls for a different type of operational support for the brand and its teams.” It is the language of an investor handing a brand to an operator, not of a founder cashing out.

On the other side, per Beauty Independent and Dealroom, Mike Bryce, HSNF’s group CEO and a former Hårklinikken COO, is now Pai’s chief executive. Brown and Saper stay on as shareholders and board advisers. Signalbase reports that FRP Corporate Finance advised Pai on the sale and that HSNF Ltd is the acquirer.

What founders can take from it

• Backers fund growth; they do not fund a model that loses more than it sells. Pai grew 17.8 percent in 2024 and still ended up changing hands.
• A founder is a fallback, not a plan. Brown and Saper returned when the company needed a reset, and a different operator was brought in once the reset was done.
• Read the register, not just the press release. The public record can date a change of control before the announcement does.
• Staying on as a shareholder is a different job from running the company. Brown’s role, per the trade press, is now adviser and owner.

Related founders

• Yasmin Sewell and Vyrao: Tresalis’s Majority Stake: another London beauty founder who stayed on as a shareholder after a majority sale.
• Charlotte Tilbury and Puig’s Stake: a beauty founder’s path from backer-led growth to a larger owner.
• Founder Exits of 2026: 23 Deals and What Founders Kept: the year’s founder ownership deals in one table.

Sourcing: ownership, director and filing details are from Companies House pages for company 05887401, opened directly this week. The deal date, buyer, executive changes and Famille C statements are from Beauty Independent (September 14, 2026), corroborated by Dealroom and Signalbase; BeautyMatter (September 15, 2026) also reports the sale but is paywalled. The 2024 revenue and loss figures are as reported by Beauty Independent and Dealroom; we did not open the filed accounts. Terms were not disclosed. No portrait is used; the image is a typographic card.