The Lip Bar Launches Grant Program Bawse Ventures

The Lip Bar is launching grant program Bawse Ventures to support the next generation of BIPOC entrepreneurs.

BIPOC founders with brands across consumer packaged goods categories can apply to receive grants of up to $25,000 in funding from the program along with a year-long mentorship from founder Melissa Butler, founder of makeup brands The Lip Bar and Thread Beauty, and colleagues from her network. Applications open today and close April 12. Semi-finalists will be notified in June and participate in a pitch competition. Three grantees will be announced in September.

Butler, who self-funded The Lip Bar for its first six years in business, is familiar with the struggles early-stage CPG companies have obtaining capital. She established Bawse Ventures with the goal of being a friend to brand founders without the ability to raise friends and family rounds. The wealth gap in the United States means Black and Hispanic families have substantially less wealth than white families. 

“I know what it’s like to not have dollars to buy inventory. I know what it’s like to do all of the jobs and wear all the hats, which is not necessarily a bad thing because you learn so much, but it doesn’t help you get out of that same place,” says Butler. “When you look at the journey of Black and brown founders in comparison to our counterparts, we typically don’t have friends and family with excess dollars to lend us. So, we end up doing things in a super scrappy way…In order for us to truly see scale from Black- and brown-owned businesses, they need help, they need mentorship, they need that friends and family round to really think about their business at a higher level.”

To be eligible for a Bawse Ventures grant, BIPOC founders must own at least 50% of their brand, and the brand must be generating a minimum of $50,000 in revenue. “That will tell you if you have a customer, if you actually have proof of concept and if you have a reason to exist,” says Butler. “I really want to make sure that the next generation of entrepreneurs is producing something that we need.”

When Butler started The Lip Bar in 2012, foundation and lipstick shade range diversity was scarce—and the brand addressed that lack of diversity. Butler says, “I don’t want us to add to the waste of the environment, so are we actually solving a problem? Is there someone whose needs truly aren’t being served? Do you already have proof of concept and are you the person to drive this dream forward?”

“Black and brown founders typically don’t have friends and family with excess dollars to lend us.”

The Lip Bar hit $26,000 in sales in its initial year in business. The brand has gone on to increase sales 70% year-over-year in each of the past six years. The Lip Bar raised $2 million in seed funding from New Voices Fund in 2018. In 2022, it raised another $6.7 million in led by Pendulum, with participation from The Fearless Fund and Endeavor. The 2022 cash infusion helped The Lip Bar become the largest Black-owned makeup company in Target in 2023, going from placement on three shelves to 24 and expanding its footprint by 700% in stores nationwide. The Lip Bar entered 3,300 CVS doors as well.

Butler envisions Bawse Ventures as an annual grant program that will eventually turn into a fund to make larger investments in brands. She’s launching it at a moment when there’s been intense scrutiny of efforts to nurture Black advancement and entrepreneurship. Last year, American Alliance for Equal Rights, a nonprofit headed by Edward Blum, the legal strategist behind the United States Supreme Court case that dismantled affirmative action in college admissions, sued Fearless Fund, a venture capital firm backing beauty and wellness brands such as Brown Girl Jane, Oui The People, Bread Beauty Supply, Hairbrella, Kushae and Live Tinted, to stop a grant program doling out grants to Black entrepreneurs. A court order blocked that grant program, but Fearless Fund is challenging that order on appeal.

In the current environment, Butler believes grant funding for BIPOC entrepreneurs will dwindle. “Corporate dollars essentially run the country, and if corporate is scared, then programs will change,” she says. “I think it’s up to the people who actually care about the programs—not the people who just put up their black squares, but the people who know how these programs like Bawse Ventures will impact a local small business—to keep fighting.”