$23M In Venture Capital Raised By Black-Owned Hair Brand
The black-owned startup and popular hair brand Mayvenn recently raised $23 million in venture capital funding, reports Black Enterprise. The company got its start selling quality virgin human hair and extensions in 2013. Mayvenn is also recommended by more than 100,000 stylists. According to Co-founder and CEO Diishan Imira, the money that the company raised will go towards the creation of a new service for the company which will allow customers to have their hair installed by Mayvenn certified hair stylists for free, cites News One.
“Mayvenn has been well received by the investment community because it’s different. Investors saw that we had traction and an ownable stake of a large, fragmented market that has been highly overlooked with millions of dollars in buying power who wanted a better way to find and purchase hair. Additionally, as founders, we’re not only passionate about our mission, but have very unique and complementary skill sets to go out and solve these problems.”
It’s reported that the beauty industry is expected to be worth more than $390 billion by the year 2020. Black entrepreneurs are seeing to it that they will see a piece of this pie. In fact, Essence Ventures, Cross Culture Ventures, Impact America Fund, and 16z were all instrumental in helping Mayvenn secure the new funds.
Other black-owned businesses are also making their waves in venture capital. In fact, two women behind wildly popular makeup brand Mented Cosmetics, Amanda Johnson and KJ Miller, recently chose to knock down barriers for African American women in the realm of entrepreneurship. This occurred after the duo became the 15th and 16th African-American women in history to garner $1 million in venture capital funding for their startup, noted News One.
The company’s data shows that stylists on the program are already seeing large increases of 40 percent to 50 percent in the number of clients coming into their businesses. To date, Mayvenn has paid over $20 million in commission to hairstylists across the country with a core mission to change the direction dollars flow in the beauty industry, reports Black Enterprises. Imira also stated that the company has big plans for the infusion of capital.
“Our plans for this new infusion of capital is to invest heavily in consumer and brand marketing. We’ve been a very B2B driven company thus far, but demand has grown so much that we will be able to better serve our customers by having direct relationships with them, while also driving more business for our stylists. Our newest feature will be game-changing. In certain areas, and soon-to-be nationwide, Mayvenn customers will be able to buy hair directly from Mayvenn and we will pair them with a top-tier stylist in their area, who will do their hair free of charge, in an effort to provide the best possible end-to-end experience for our consumers.”
