Hair
Black-Owned Beauty Brand Mielle Organics Secures $100M Investment
Talk about securing the bag.
Mielle Organics has just secured some major bag. The Black-owned beauty brand has received a more than $100M Series A investment from Berkshire Partners.
[SEE ALSO: LeToya Luckett & Toya Johnson Are The New Faces Of Mielle Organics]
Funds from the Boston-based firm will help the natural haircare brand expand its growth plans and support its More Than a Strand initiative aimed at strengthening the bond between mothers, daughters, and young girls across the United States, Caribbean, and Africa.
Monique and Melvin Rodriguez founded Mielle Organics in 2014 to help provide organic, natural hair care options for texture hair. Since then, the brand has been billed as one of the fastest-growing natural hair companies in the industry, growing over 160% in sales in 2020, alone. The brand also lines the shelves of such U.S. based retailers as Sally Beauty, Target, Walmart, Walgreens and CVS and establishing an international footprint in Africa and Europe.
“We started this business in our garage, sparked by Monique’s passion to build a worldwide community of women,” said Melvin Rodriguez, COO in a recent statement. “During the past seven years, we’ve been able to expand our product lines, increase our distribution and invest in our community; we are excited to continue innovating and developing new products, grow awareness of Mielle, and reach even more consumers to give them products that they deserve.”
The husband and wife duo will maintain control of the company and retain majority ownership with the new partnership which propels Monique into a list of less than 100 Black woman founders who have secured $1M or ore in investment funding for their companies, according to digitalundivided’s ProjectDiane2020 biennial study on Black & Latinx women founders in the U.S.
“We are excited to forge this historic partnership with Berkshire Partners,” said Monique Rodriquez, Mielle CEO. “Their investment reinforces our mission for community development and growth of Mielle’s vision of global expansion.”
The brand will also continue its partnership with SheaMoisture founder Richelieu Dennis’ New Voices Fund, which partnered with Mielle in 2019.
“I am even more excited to partner with Monique, Melvin and Berkshire Partners on this next leg of their historic journey where I fully expect to help them surpass our successes and impact in the beauty space,” said Dennis. “This is what creating equity and closing the wealth gap looks like – us investing in us so that there are not just a few of us, but thousands of us creating generational wealth to reinvest in our communities.”
“We are thrilled to continue this journey with New Voices,” added Monique Rodriguez. “They believed in Mielle from the beginning and have truly been a great partner. These are the types of steps it takes to create generational wealth and jobs for people of color. We are truly grateful for their partnership,” added Rodriquez.
