Latinx-owned businesses only received 2.1% of venture capital funding last year. The lack of funding and mentorship for Latinx entrepreneurs is what promoted Margarita Arriagada, the founder and CEO of beauty brand Valdé, to create the Latinx Beauty Entrepreneur Grant. 

The Latinx Beauty Entrepreneur Grant is the first initiative Valdé has created off of the Valdé NFT Collective. The grant’s goal is “specifically to support Latinx beauty entrepreneurs which are under-represented in Beauty.”

Judges for the grant competition include Arriagada; Rea Ann Silva, the founder & CEO of Beautyblender; Deepica Mutyoda, the founder & CEO of Live Tinted; Nyakio Grieco, the founder of Nyakio Beauty & co-founder of Thirteen Lune; and Ana Flores, the founder & CEO of #WeAllGrow Latina Network. 

To be eligible for the grant, businesses:

• Must be a Latinx-owned or majority Latinx-owned business based in the United States.
• Must have three or fewer full-time employees.
• Must be incorporated.
• Must be in the beauty/wellness space with consumer packaged goods (CPS) or other hard goods. 
• Their products must be “clean” and/or “sustainable” or the business must be working towards making them that.
• Must have a product prototype or have launched with limited distribution. 
• Must be able and available to attend Pitch Day on June 23. 
• Must be at least 18 years old. 
• One entry per business.

After three businesses have been selected as finalists on May 28, the grant sponsor will contact them to set up a 30-minute interview for the first week of June. 

After this interview, the finalists will participate in Pitch Day on June 23 where they will give the judges a 20-minute presentation over Zoom. 

The finalist with the highest score from this presentation will be the winner. The winner will be announced the same day. 

The winner will get a $10,000 cash grant, a ticket to the #WeAllGrow Summit in Palm Springs, and $200,000 worth of consulting services from The Bonita Project, The Dream Lab, School House, Pamela Rosario Law, and Beauty Barrage. 

They will also have the opportunity to pitch their product to beauty retailers like Ulta Beauty, Sephora, and Thirteen Lune, which describes itself as “an e-commerce destination designed to inspire the discovery of beauty brands created by Black and Brown founders.”

Applications are open until May 23 at midnight PST.