Last week Summer Fridays announced its first capital raise from Prelude Growth Partners. Launched by influencer friends, Marianna Hewitt and Lauren Gores in 2018, the skin care-focused line boasts three SKUs featuring Instagrammable aluminum squeeze tubes and clean ingredients. Marianna shared the news of the partnership via her Instagram account, saying, “To be able to support our vision and growth, we knew it was time to take the next step for our company. We are so thrilled to share the news that we have taken a minority investment, our first time raising outside capital for Summer Fridays. What does this news mean? It means all of the investment goes directly into the company and we’re able to use those funds to grow the brand, create the products that you’re asking us for and build our team to be able to support those goals.”
A year and a half ago social media Influencer Deepica Mutyala created Live Tinted, an online platform focused on featuring skin tones that are underrepresented in the media. The platform soon turned into a full-fledged beauty brand with a range of makeup items which debuted this year. Now, the brand has secured its first round of seed funding from several investors including Bobbi Brown and Hayley Barna, who co-founded Birchbox and is now a Venture Partner at First Round Capital. Deepica wrote, “I’d walk down the beauty aisles to not see myself and have this pit in my stomach about feeling excluded. I went into college with the mindset that I was going to learn everything I could about this industry and one day build a brand that would change the narrative I had growing up…I’ve learned so much about the fundraising process and, after exploring all of the options …. I’ve made the decision to bring in a group of industry leaders that I respect as friends, mentors, business tycoons and now as formal investors.”