Nikki Eslami has a history of creating and investing in brands that reshape industry and drive impact. In 2012, Nikki co-founded BELLAMI alongside co-founder Julius Salerno. Over the last decade, they scaled the brand to become the largest and fastest growing hair extension company in the world. BELLAMI was also among the first to pioneer innovative ways to engage communities through influencer marketing before it was a developed industry. In 2022, BELLAMI was acquired by industry leader Beauty Industry Group (BIG) who is backed by L Catterton, a move that will guide the brand into its next phase of growth and expand its reach to continue to meet the diverse hair needs of women.
As a young female founder at the helm of hair brand BELLAMI, Nikki experienced firsthand how vastly underrepresented, underestimated, and underfunded women and diverse founders are in the business world, particularly when it comes to venture capital. To shift power and reimagine the landscape, Nikki built New Theory Ventures, a venture capital firm driving capital to women and diverse founders at the helm of impact-forward and innovative companies across beauty, wellness, food, lifestyle, and technology. In 2022, she partnered with Gwen Stefani to launch GXVE Beauty. Through New Theory Ventures, Nikki is also an investor in Babylon Micro-Farms, Ceremonia, Female Invest, iNNBEAUTY Project, Neat Burger, Sourse, and Thirteen Lune. Through New Theory Ventures, she founded and serves as the CEO of Wild Elements, the creator of IN + ON bodyCARE. Wild Elements uses innovative, planet-friendly methods designed IN nature, based ON science in an effort to regenerate mind, body and planet.
Nikki is a Cosmetic Executive Women (CEW) Achiever Award Recipient and Honoree, a Trustee of Environmental Defense Fund, and a member of the Vital Voices Impact Fund Collective.