Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye, one of the first among the small number of Black women to raise more than $1 million in venture capital, announced on Thursday the closure of her award-winning beauty startup Ami Colé.
Ami Colé creates makeup for those with darker skin colors, as those consumers often struggle to find makeup that matches their skin tone. It launched in 2021, sold through Sephora, and became a celeb favorite among the likes of singer Kelly Rowland and actress Mindy Kaling. But the 4-year-old company will now officially shutter in September.
N’Diaye-Mbaye wrote about her decision to close the company in “The Cut,” saying that “after looking at every option, it became clear that continuing in this current market wasn’t sustainable.” Her company had raised more than $3 million in venture capital, according to PitchBook, with backing from the likes of G9 Ventures, Greycroft, and angel investors Hannah Bronfma and “The Cut” editor-in-chief Lindsay Peoples Wagner.
Ami Colé did not immediately respond to our request for comment.
Like many Black startups launched after the murder of George Floyd, Ami Colé rode the waves of excitement from investors and corporations looking to pour money into backing more products and initiatives that touched upon diversity, equity, and inclusion.
N’Diaye-Mbaye hinted that one of the problems was tension between her and investors’ expectations of a consumer retail business. While she had loyal customers, her fast nationwide growth meant pressure from investors. But her brand struggled to compete with bigger companies with deeper pockets, despite pouring a sizable chunk of its budget into marketing. Ami Colé faced the ups and downs of production versus sales in retail: one week selling straight through, and another not moving a unit.
“Instead of focusing on the healthy, sustainable future of the company and meeting the needs of our loyal fan base, I rode a temperamental wave of appraising investors — some of whom seemed to have an attitude toward equity and ‘betting big on inclusivity” that changed its tune a lot, to my ears, from what it sounded like in 2020,” she wrote.
The strain comes as venture funding to Black founders has hit a multi-year low in a political climate that has disavowed anything perceived as DEI. N’Diaye-Mbaye ended her announcement by saying that though this chapter in her life was ending, her work was not done.
“I still believe in beauty — at every level — and I’m looking forward to discovering what comes next,” she said.
