GENERAL NEWS
Kim Kardashian Launching Private Equity Firm, SKKY Partners, to Help Budding Entrepreneurs
Kim Kardashian is teaming up with a former partner at Carlyle Group Inc. for latest business venture
Kim Kardashian is expanding her ever-growing résumé once more.
The SKIMS founder, 41, is launching a new private equity firm alongside a former partner at Carlyle Group Inc., Jay Sammons, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
Dubbed SKKY Partners, the firm will make investments in areas like consumer-media and entertainment businesses, consumer products, luxury, hospitality and digital commerce and media, the outlet explained.
According to a post from an Instagram account for the company, the firm will focus “on both control and minority investments in high-growth, market-leading consumer and media companies.”
WSJ reported that Sammons has a longtime relationship with both Kardashian and her mother/manager, Kris Jenner, and approached the duo earlier this year about starting the firm. Sammons told WSJ that Jenner, 66, will join SKKY as a partner.
SKKY Partners did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
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Kardashian told WSJ that she was attracted to the idea of starting the firm because of the chance to work closely with entrepreneurs to help them build up their companies.
“The exciting part is to sit down with these founders and figure out what their dream is,” The Kardashians star explained. “I want to support what that is, not change who they are in their DNA, but just support and get them to a different level.”
While the firm has yet to make any investments thus far, they plan to start doing so later this year, WSJ said. They also plan to begin fundraising shortly, through institutional investors.
Sammons told WSJ that teaming up with Kardashian allows them to both lean into their own strengths — which, for him, includes finances and investments, and for Kardashian, her influence and reach globally and via social media.
He also said of both Kardashian and Jenner, “Having built businesses themselves as true entrepreneurs is a very differentiated approach.”
WSJ noted that Kardashian’s shape and loungewear brand, SKIMS, which she launched in 2019, was recently valued at $3.2 billion.
“I use shapewear as a solution to my styling needs. I always wanted something that would smooth, and sometimes not necessarily change my shape,” Kardashian previously told PEOPLE on the inspiration behind the brand. “When I wear sheer garments, I used my shapewear to line things like jumpsuits and gowns.”
Back in November of last year, Kardashian was named WSJ. Magazine’s 2021 brand innovator for the company’s success.
The longtime reality star also recently expanded her beauty empire and launched her nine-product skincare line, SKKN BY KIM, earlier this summer, with products ranging from $37 to $95.
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