WNBA Star Lexie Hull’s Forta Joins Sephora Accelerate

Indiana Fever guard Lexie Hull’s day job is competing in front of thousands of fans. One of her biggest frustrations with it, however, has nothing to do with the demands of a high-intensity sport. It’s makeup that can’t keep up.

Hull brought the problem to former Stanford roommate Sarah Guller, who had spent several years evaluating consumer brands while working in private equity at Summit Partners and The Chernin Group, firms whose investments have included Oura, Dr. Squatch, Philz Coffee and Brooklinen. She wanted to know whether solutions already existed on the market.

Hull recounts, “I would put on a full face of makeup or less than a full face and it be on my jersey or towel and no longer on my face during practice or games. That’s when we were like, ‘OK, it’s not out there, let’s just do it ourselves.’”

Hull and Guller launched Forta Cosmetics in March with a single $26 product, sweat-resistant Lock & Go Setting Spray. The brand is targeting active women who need makeup that can move seamlessly from the boardroom to the gym, pickleball court, marathon finish line or dinner date without requiring constant touchups. The product generated more than $10,000 in sales within 24 hours of launch.

Now, Forta, a play on “for the active,” has been accepted to Sephora Accelerate, joining Mowe Beauty, another brand in the cohort targeting active consumers. The presence of both brands suggests Sephora sees growing potential in the active beauty segment, with performance-oriented products designed for active lifestyles. Sephora previously carried Lululemon’s beauty line as well as Sweat Cosmetics, a soccer player-founded brand centered on the concept of “activewear for your face” that later rebranded as Hustle Beauty and eventually shut down.

“Lexie and I joke that we manifested Sephora in that I think pretty much from day zero, the dream has always been to eventually be in Sephora. It was definitely an exciting north star for us,” says Guller. “When we saw that they had an accelerator program, we felt like it made a lot of sense to build the brand early on with Sephora’s guidance so that we can be retail ready and positioned for success in that retailer if that’s a route we go.”

As Beauty Independent reported in May, Sephora recently revamped Accelerate to focus less on retail access and more on operational readiness and long-term viability. The six-month program covers areas including operations, finance, media training, team building and strategic planning. This shift aligns with the retailer's broader strategy of incubating highly targeted, community-driven brands, similar to fragrance influencer Funmi Monet launching her Influxious brand at Sephora to leverage pre-existing digital audiences.

Forta’s selection for Accelerate comes as women’s sports are booming and younger consumers are embracing athletic participation and viewership. Gen Z participates in sports at greater rates than previous generations, and athletics are increasingly viewed as a way to reduce screen time in the artificial intelligence age.

The WNBA’s audience, for example, keeps expanding: viewers logged 220 million hours of games last season, up 16% year over year, and Nielsen estimates the league now reaches 46.9 million American fans, a 31% jump in just two years. This expanding audience is driving interest from the beauty industry, which sees an opportunity to connect with active women. WNBA stars such as Angel Reese, Sabrina Ionescu, Paige Bueckers, A’ja Wilson and Cameron Brink have landed beauty sponsorships, and beauty brands including Glossier, Fenty Beauty and CoverGirl have formed partnerships with WNBA teams.

“We want to show up where the active woman is to show that beauty and performance can and should coexist in the same space.”

While Forta was inspired by Hull’s experience as a professional athlete, its appeal extends beyond competitive sports. “We’ve had nurses reach out that have said, ‘Oh my gosh, it lasted through my whole shift,’” says Hull. “We’ve had performers and people who are like, ‘I wore it to an outdoor wedding, and I didn’t have to retouch my makeup.’ That’s another person that this is perfect for.”

To fund Forta’s initial purchase order of around 10,000 units, Hull and Guller invested about $17,000 from their personal savings. They went on to raise an undisclosed friends and family round to help finance the brand’s growth. Lip and eye products are in the pipeline. Hull says Forta intends to expand across face categories to help consumers create complete looks.

To raise awareness, Forta is meeting consumers where they exercise and compete. It’s held three to four monthly pop-ups at pilates classes, tennis and pickleball tournaments, local races and marathons. In addition to an eventual retail partnership with Sephora, Guller envisions the brand in locker rooms and sporting events across the country.

“When people think of makeup, they think of Sephora, they think of a very kind of traditional sense of beauty,” says Guller. “And for us, we want to show up where the active woman is to show that beauty and performance can and should coexist in the same space.”

Hull’s WNBA status—along with her nearly 500,000 followers on Instagram and another 300,000 on TikTok—has been a boon for Forta. Among the brand’s strongest-performing content are before-and-after posts showing Hull’s makeup intact before, during and after games. Seeding professional athletes is also part of the marketing strategy. Sophie Cunningham, Eugenie Bouchard and Caitlin Clark have posted about the brand organically. Forta pledges 1% of proceeds to organizations aimed at sports access for underprivileged children.

Guller says, “Obviously Lexi’s a huge name in women’s sports, but it’s been awesome to see just how many other women out there are happy to promote the brand on their socials just because they identify with it.” She adds, “Female athletes are role models for young girls and as we lean into that movement where it’s cool to be strong and it’s beautiful to be active, we want to have Forta be the brand that you think about.”