LA-based beauty retailer Thirteen Lune and its co-founder and CEO Nyakio Grieco have become embroiled in a lawsuit that accuses the executive of fraud and embezzlement.
Investors Beauty Generations Fund and Relevance Capital — who say they put a combined $3 million into the company in May 2024 — filed the lawsuit in a Los Angeles district court on Mar. 4 against Thirteen Lune, Grieco, and other defendants including new owners SNR Capital and its principals, Conor Riley and Piyush Golia. The suit accuses Greico of 17 complaints including several forms of fraud as well as breach of fiduciary duty and misappropriation of company funds for personal purchases.
Thirteen Lune was founded in 2020 with a focus on BIPOC-owned brands. It received investment from celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and diversity-focused grant program the Fearless Fund.
Court documents state that Thirteen Lune’s net revenue declined from $24 million in 2023 to $7 million in 2024, and claim that Thirteen Lune did not properly notify investors when it was acquired by SNR Capital in December 2024.
The firms say they suffered financial damages from the “significant discount” at which the company was purchased. The deal, a bankruptcy alternative process known as an assignment for the benefit of creditors (ABC), went through in “the dead of night” without shareholders’ knowledge, the firms allege.
In the filing, the plaintiffs are asking the court to appoint a neutral party to take control of Thirteen Lune assets, as well as a halt to all funds transfers and a cancellation of the acquisition contract. They are also calling for a reimbursement of over $165,000 in personal expenses such as travel and beauty services they claim Greico made with company funds.
Grieco told journalist Kirbie Johnson, who first reported the story in her newsletter “Ahead of the Kirb” published Mar. 24, that the lawsuit is “baseless.”
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