Mented Cosmetics has closed a $5 million Series A round led by Corazon Capital and CircleUp Growth Partners.

WHO: Mented (short for "pigmented") Cosmetics was founded by Harvard Business School classmates Amanda Johnson and KJ Miller. The brand started taking pre-orders for their first products in January 2017, but officially launched in March 2017. Mented is a range of nude lipsticks that is vegan, nontoxic, and formulated especially for women of color. The brand has expanded to a full makeup line, with foundation being the bestseller followed by lip products.

WHY: Mented plans to use the capital infusion to build the team and expand distribution with Ulta Beauty and Target, and begin an international rollout.

TRIBE DYNAMICS EMV: A Black-owned brand that takes pride in designing products for women of color, Mented Cosmetics raked in $2.2MM EMV from412 creators, figures which marked respective 36% and 14% QoQ growths. The brand’s top source of EMV came, somewhat surprisingly, from lifestyle guru Martha Stewart (@marthastewart on Instagram),who touted Mented Cosmetics in daily routine posts and shared her interview with brand founders KJ Miller and Amanda Johnson. After not posting about the brand in Q4, Stewart powered $187.0K EMV via25 pieces of Q4 content. Other top earners, including Andrea Renee(@andrearenee00) and Danielle Harold (@dhbeautyful), typically featured Mented Cosmetics in organic makeup tutorials, with # Ad driving just $38.2K EMV for the brand in Q1.

DETAILS:

• Mented Cosmetics closed a $5 million Series A led by Corazon Capital and CircleUp Growth Partners.
• The business projects the retail business will triple in 2022, and DTC sales will increase by 60%.
• The brand will focus on international distribution as well as expanding into more Ulta Beauty (487 doors to 587) and Target (293 doors to 515) stores.
• Mented plans to hire a head of growth, head of finance, and head of brand marketing by the end of 2022, which will bring head count to 15.
• In 2018, Mented raised a $3 million seed round from lead investor CircleUp Growth Partners.
• Mented raised a pre-seed $1MM round of funding that came from a mix of VC firms and angel investors including iSeed Ventures; Built by Girls; Corazon Capital; Outbound Ventures; BAM Ventures; and Blue Seed Collective in October of 2017.
• In March 2017, the founders started the business with $10,000-$15,000 of their own money and handmade samples.