When Gyve Safavi and Mark Rushmore first met on a speedboat in the south of France — with advertising tycoon Sir Martin Sorrell also on board — few could have predicted that the chance encounter would spark a £24 million sustainable toothbrush business.
Their brand, Suri, now boasts celebrity fans including Sir Jony Ive and the Kardashians, and is stocked by Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop in the US. But behind the glamour lies an unlikely product: an eco-friendly electric toothbrush designed to end the problem of sink-side “gunk”.
“No one likes that gunk,” says Safavi, 42, pointing to the wall-mountable magnet that keeps Suri brushes elevated and clean.
Both men started their careers at Procter & Gamble, working on global consumer brands like Oral-B and Gillette. Years later, Safavi was at WPP and Rushmore running his own events business when the idea of a sustainable health and beauty product began to take shape.
By 2020, with the pandemic derailing Safavi’s travel plans and Rushmore free after selling his first company, the pair reconnected in a London park. Safavi shared a detailed business plan for a toothbrush made from corn starch, castor oil and aluminium — designed to be repaired or recycled, stripped of unnecessary gimmicks like Bluetooth, and priced for everyday use.
Rushmore recalls: “That night I opened the file and it was the most detailed, comprehensive research, with so much thinking behind everything. I could see there really was something that, if we combined our skills, we could take further.”
The pair spent lockdown cold-calling 24 manufacturers across Asia. Most laughed at their vision. “Efficiency and innovation for a factory means making what you already make, faster and cheaper — not taking a risk with two guys who’ve never built hardware,” Safavi says.
Eventually, one factory in China agreed, and they raised £800,000 from angel investors and venture capital firm Salica to fund their first 5,000 brushes. Early prototypes were clunky, but with consumer testing, design tweaks and sheer persistence, Suri began to take shape.
By May 2022, their first run sold out in three days. A second run sold out in two weeks. Instagram ads, glowing press reviews and a £200,000 advertising prize from the Earth Ad Fund amplified demand.
Suri now employs 37 people and has raised further funding rounds — £2 million in 2023 and £6 million in 2024, with backers including JamJar, the venture fund founded by the Innocent smoothies team. Safavi and Rushmore remain the largest shareholders.
But success has not been without challenges. A logistics error early on left 3,000 US orders stranded because couriers refused to ship items containing batteries. “For 72 hours, that really felt existential,” Rushmore admits. “If everyone had demanded refunds, we would have been finished.” Instead, they emailed each customer personally, and most stuck by them.
Key selling points include a long battery life, a quiet motor, and the much-marketed wall-mount magnet. Customers are also encouraged to return brushes for repair or recycling. Safavi says their philosophy is simple: “Focus on what people actually use, and cut the rest.”
Their efforts have been recognised by industry figures, not least design icon Sir Jony Ive, who texted his approval of the brush late one night. “We were giggling like two little kids,” Safavi recalls.
Both founders acknowledge the personal toll of start-up life, crediting their wives as “unsung heroes” who shouldered the family load while they worked 18-hour days without salary.
From a chance meeting on a boat to a fast-growing brand disrupting Oral-B and Philips, Suri’s story shows how two friends tackled the overlooked pain points of toothbrush design and turned them into a multimillion-pound business.
Paul Jones
Harvard alumni and former New York Times journalist. Editor of Business Matters for over 15 years, the UKs largest business magazine. I am also head of Capital Business Media’s automotive division working for clients such as Red Bull Racing, Honda, Aston Martin and Infiniti.