Mayvenn raised $23MM in a Series B funding round led by Essence Ventures with participation from a16z, Impact America Fund, and Cross Culture Ventures.
WHO: Oakland-based Mayvenn was founded in 2012 by Diishan Imira with COO Taylor Wang. The start-up sells and affixes hair products. As the brand operates today, stylists sign up with Mayvenn for free, and receive a company-created website which acts as a gateway to the company’s online hair extension store, offering various types and styles. Stylists then can direct their clients to buy from the site and receive a 15% commission for each purchase, plus $100 of free hair for every $600 worth sold.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS: “Mayvenn has been well received by the investment community because it’s different,” CEO and founder Diishan Imira told Black Enterprise. “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.”
“Our plans for this new infusion of capital is to invest heavily in consumer and brand marketing,” continued Imira. “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.”
“They’re taking a lot of friction out of the process and creating data economics for the professionals and the stylists, and greater value for the consumers,” Richelieu Dennis of Essence Ventures told Forbes. The concept caters to an underserved market in both cases that is scalable—a winning strategy. Recruiting stylists to the Mayvenn platform to act as de facto brand ambassadors and points of sale shows a level of innovation the hair extension business has not seen. “We think that this gives Mayvenn the opportunity to be a leader in this space both on the service side and on the community side,” says Dennis.
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