Franchise Times
By Lauren Michaels
January 27, 2026
KSL Capital, which owned WellBiz Brands since 2015, sold the platform company to Los Angeles-based Transom Capital. WellBiz CEO Amanda Clark, who stepped into her role in 2024, said the foundation for growth is there, “and now we need to go out and sell and open more units.”
Some private equity firms might go out of their way to avoid investing in a multi-brand franchise platform, preferring instead to buy individual brands. But for Transom Capital Group, the ability to acquire a company with multiple concepts under its umbrella was a key component of its most recent deal.
Los Angeles-based Transom Capital acquired WellBiz Brands, owner of Amazing Lash Studio, Drybar, Elements Massage, Fitness Together and Radiant Waxing, from KSL Capital in a transaction finalized January 21. Financial terms were not disclosed.
“One of the big things that drew us to the opportunity was seeing a platform that had a number of different brands that require a number of different strategies to be successful,” said Transom Managing Director Conor Davenport. “We’ve had successful investing experience in opportunities like those, regardless of industry.”
Davenport described Transom as a “generalist investor,” one whose portfolio spans a number of industries such as managed IT, construction services and consumer products. It owns Gene Juarez Salons & Spas, a non-franchised retailer in the Pacific Northwest, and Beauty Quest Group, which manufactures and markets hair care products. Those latter investments, he noted, have some overlap with the business lines under WellBiz, and Transom briefly owned American Driveline Systems, the master franchisor of AAMCO and Cottman Transmission.
WellBiz CEO Amanda Clark said the company received interest from numerous private equity firms, and she was excited to find a new partner that wanted to buy the business in its entirety.
“That means the band can stay together, versus someone who was coming to just buy one or two of the brands individually,” said Clark, who will remain CEO. The company’s executive leadership team, which she largely assembled since arriving at WellBiz in March 2024, will remain in place, Clark said.
Transom, said Clark, specializes in “businesses that may have situational complexity or operational complexity. And I think one could argue, when you have five brands and over 400 franchisees, it’s a pretty complex business. So I think that is a great thing for our next partner to have.”
Transom and WellBiz, she continued, share a vision focused on accelerating growth in all of the platform company’s brands.
“The big one is really accelerating unit development. I think we have many strong brands that continue to grow, continue to post same-store sale gains month after month,” Clark said. “We’ve done a lot of work, even on the assets and the box and what the payback looks like to really shorten and tighten that period. So to me, the foundation is built, and now we need to go out and sell and open more units.”
Blowout-only salon concept Drybar ended 2025 with more than 200 locations and announced this month it signed a multi-unit deal with large restaurant franchisee Chunara Group. The concept, said Davenport, “is a category leader with really strong name recognition.” Top-performing units reported average sales of $1.3 million in 2024.
He also called out Elements Massage, which has more than 240 locations, as a flagship brand in the portfolio. Memberships within the businesses are “very sticky,” he noted, and represent a strong and growing revenue channel.
Eyelash extension franchise Amazing Lash Studio, meanwhile, is one that will require some more work. Roughly 100 locations have closed since 2023. The average unit volume was $574,361 in 2024, a nearly 19 percent decrease since 2022.
“That brand has had some more operational complexity to it, and a little bit more challenges with driving same-store sales, and so that to us is an opportunity,” said Davenport.
“Any time we see something like declining same-store sales, we view that as an opportunity for our operations team to really work closely with the company’s management team to determine ways to improve that. Think through innovation” and specific operational key performance indicators, he continued. “And make the improvements at the existing store base, as well as think through ways to expand the unit count, which is obviously the name of the game with a franchisor.”
Transom, Davenport said, emphasizes a collaborative approach with the companies it invests in, but it’s not looking to run the business. “The management team is in charge, and they know the industry, and they know the business better than we ever will, because that’s what they’re spending 100 percent of their time on,” he said. Any kind of “meaningful change,” he continued, will be vetted with franchisees.
What became WellBiz Brands started with Fitness Together, which at its height had more than 300 locations. (That number is down to 86.) The umbrella company later formed in 2008 after owner Enhanced Equity Fund bought Elements Massage. It added group training concept Fit36 in 2014. (Fit36 is seemingly defunct after EEF sold it in 2019.)
In 2015, KSL Capital Partners purchased WellBiz and the company shifted into acquisition mode, buying Amazing Lash in 2018, then Drybar and what was LunchboxWax just a few months apart in 2021. Plenty of big lifts followed, including the rebranding of LunchboxWax to Radiant Waxing, and each concept saw different rates of recovery from the pandemic.
Kirkland & Ellis served as legal adviser to Transom in connection with the transaction. North Point Mergers & Acquisitions and Boxwood Partners served as financial advisers to WellBiz, and Davis Graham & Stubbs was legal adviser to WellBiz.
