It’s an unlikely collaboration – a baby skincare line founded by a rapper and backed by Premier League footballers – but you can’t argue with a multimillion-pound valuation.
Krept, one half of hip hop duo Krept & Konan, winner of four MOBO awards and host of his own TV show, is on a mission to turn Nala’s Baby into as much of a household name as he is.
Founded only four years ago, the company – whose name is inspired by his daughter – values itself at around £20m today. It landed in 400 Boots stores in 2022 and has since launched in Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Superdrug and Ocado to name a few.
It’s been a journey, Krept tells the Money blog.
“It sounds crazy when I say it like that,” Krept, real name Casyo Johnson, laughs. “When I look back, I remember when we were sitting in a car, Konan was homeless, we didn’t have any money and we were arguing.
“Literally, having a fight about the last piece of chicken because we couldn’t afford any more… I just will never forget that. Fast-forward and I’m here selling baby products in nearly every retailer in the country.”
Nala’s Baby started as a project for Krept, 34, and his co-founder and ex-girlfriend Sasha Ellese while she was pregnant with their daughter. The pair still own 75% between them, while the other 25% has gone to investors, including footballers Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho.
During her pregnancy, Sasha became “really concerned” about what she was putting on her skin, Krept says: “We were getting loads of gifts from baby showers… but none of the products were fully clean.”
They used an ingredient rating app called Think Dirty, which ranks each product from 0, the cleanest, to 10, the dirtiest – but there wasn’t “a zero-rated clean natural product that existed”, Krept says.
“We saw that as an opportunity to say, why don’t we create our own?…
