Dave Gross and Andy Howell, co-founders of Santa Monica cosmetic customization company MatchCo, which sold to Japanese beauty giant Shiseido Co. Ltd. last week, have learned a lot about makeup since launching their business in 2013.

“We knew very little to nothing about the industry before getting started on this,” said Howell, the company’s chief strategy officer. “It was a big learning curve early on, but luckily we were able to get introductions to people in the industry that really helped.”

The pair, which will continue to operate MatchCo, also sat down and talked to women. Lots of women.

“Andy and I over the first year and a half or so talked with hundreds of women to get their feedback,” said Gross, the company’s chief executive.

Those conversations paid off.

While terms of the MatchCo transaction were not released, Shiseido rival L’Oréal bought early stage customized makeup company Sayuki Custom Cosmetics Inc. in 2014 for an estimated $150 million.

MatchCo, which has about a dozen employees according to Gross and Howell, allows users to scan their face using an app, which is then analyzed by the company’s platform to create a foundation that matches customers’ skin tones. MatchCo charges $49 for a 1-ounce bottle of the customized product. The app is free.

Steve Davis, managing director in charge of beauty and personal care at Brentwood’s Intrepid Investment Bankers, said the MatchCo acquisition continued the swell of recent cosmetics deals.

“Typically, it’s only a few buyers who are active in this space, but right now you have most of the strategic buyers making acquisitions,” Davis said. “It’s that rare window where all these companies – along with private equity shops – are active on the deals front.”

Davis said that while the volume of cosmetics deals is high, big players in the consumer products industry typically grow by swallowing up smaller firms.

Gross and Howell, who both served as executives at product customization site Zazzle Inc. of Redwood City before launching MatchCo, said they entertained a variety of offers from numerous companies before selling to Shiseido.

“We were certainly approached by a lot of different folks to do a lot of different things, but when we were thinking about raising money this summer, we quickly realized that we would be able to grow the company much faster if we partnered with Shiseido,” Gross said. “The ability to apply our technology to different markets and products was really appealing.”

Looking back on their development and their now-superior knowledge of the cosmetic business, Gross and Howell said their most important revelation wasn’t about makeup itself, it was about how women interact with the platform they created.

“We learned that it’s very different to get this data through an iPhone,” Howell said. “The mobile device, in a way, is someone’s most trusted resource.”