Moj Mahdara

Kohl Murdock

Moj Mahdara is best generally known as the disruptor who mobilized the ability of Gen-Z and variety to show the complete beauty industry on its head for the higher a part of a decade. Holding fast to their belief within the power of influence over affluence, Mahdara has now turned their sights to the sector of enterprise capital.

Because the CEO and architect of Beautycon, Mahdara manifested a vision where content creators could construct iconic CPG brands, and Gen-Z talent could fundamentally break from the homogeneity and establishment of the wonder and wellness industries. Mahdara’s keen eye for next-generation brands, talent, and trends prompted platforms like Latest York Times and WWD to call Beautycon the “mecca” and “superbowl” of the wonder industry. But through the pandemic, which shuttered a whole lot of live events businesses globally, Mahdara said goodbye to Beautycon. “That was one of the crucial difficult times of my life. It gutted me. I needed to let go of a vision I had been constructing for a very long time. It felt not possible to just accept. However the world was changing, fast. I had to maneuver on and realize you possibly can’t reach your full potential until you lean into those tough times.”

Reflecting on their very own journey as a serial entrepreneur, Mahdara reassessed the resources available to founders to navigate the changing economy and company structures post-pandemic. Before long, Mahdara co-founded a non-profit to coach and guide BIPOC founders, Beauty United, and dove headfirst into the world of enterprise capital by joining Latest York based Intuition Capital (a stealth early-stage seed fund), after which more recently as a co-founder and Managing Partner of the newly formed Kinship Ventures alongside fellow beauty & wellness founder and friend Gwyneth Paltrow.

The Power of Community and Education: the Beauty United

At the peak of the pandemic, when labor and provide chain shortages were causing trouble in the wonder industry, Mahdara began weekly virtual calls for founders to share ideas around how the wonder industry could move forward in the course of a worldwide crisis. When these beauty founders and executives decided to support first responders on the Javitz Center, Mahdara and Kendra Bracken-Ferguson, co-founded Beauty United as an official non-profit. In 2022, beauty industry leader Julee Wilson was brought on as the brand new organization’s executive director.

co-founders of Beauty United.

Jerome A. Shaw

When the Black Lives Matter protests erupted over the Summer of 2020, and types were being canceled for discriminatory hiring practices and variety initiatives, Beauty United stepped as much as adopt Professor Loretta J. Ross’s technique to call people “in” as a substitute of “out.” Mahdara and Bracken-Ferguson designed Beauty United with a mission to mobilize the collective power and influence of founders and leaders in the wonder and wellness industry as a force for good. The Beauty United “411” weekly calls had an iron-clad commitment to privacy and have become increasingly curated, including guest speakers like Adam Grant, Professor Loretta Ross, Bisa Butler, Professor Ella Bell, Bozoma St. John, Evan Spiegel, Ariana Huffington, and Secretary Hillary Clinton, drawing in over 100+ founders and executives from the wonder and wellness industries on a weekly basis. Beauty United launched a pathway for beauty leaders to mentor BIPOC entrepreneurs who desired to enter the wonder industry. “Community is one in all my core pillars personally and professionally and I feel that we will only solve problems united,” Kendra Bracken-Ferguson adds. “It’s an amazing privilege to face alongside Moj within the industry and deliver on this mission through our mentorship and fellowship programming to construct the blueprint for the following generation of beauty and wellness leaders.” Supported by Estee Lauder, Unilever, P&G, Revlon, Youth to the People, Dr Barbara Sturm, Olaplex, & Westman Atelier to call a couple of, the Beauty United fellowship and mentorship program is currently in its third class. Break out past mentees include Quentin Vennie the founding father of Wellness Brand Equitea, Abena Boamah the CEO of Hanahana Beauty & Kim Roxie, Founder and CEO of LAMIK Beauty

On the Transition from Founder to an Investor: Intuition and Kinship

After scaling Beautycon globally (beyond Los Angeles, Latest York, London, Tokyo, and Dubai – plans to expand to China were in motion just because the pandemic hit) Mahdara was forced to face hard truths about how cap tables and investing structures can ultimately bring trouble for founders and their stakeholders. Reflecting on these learnings, Mahdara is capable of bring a wealth of insights to support other founders as they construct and scale their firms. Known by some as a “war-time CEO,” Mahdara’s background – and failures – lend a competitive edge that other investors can’t offer: operational experience as a minority founder with a deeply honed instinct on where the buyer goes. Mahdara doesn’t just survive but to pay it forward.

Mahdara has applied their “founder-led” perspective at Intuition Capital, seed-stage fund investing in brands like Poppi, Public, Thirteen Lune, AmiCole, Starface, BeautyStat, Owner.com, Lemonada Media, Immi Eats, Augustine Bader, Kroma Superfood, Safely, Julie, Parade, Awe Inspired, Rae Wellness, Copper Banking, Vise Technologies, Crypto Toys, Helm.Ai, Vacation, Extra.app and more.

Through investing in high-growth tech, AI, Web3, beauty, the longer term of health and commerce, Mahdara has a rarified perspective that accounts for social influence and the rapidly changing cultural values across the economy entrepreneurship and what consumers want, “Being a founder because the culture’s ethics are shifting from traditional capitalism to stakeholder capitalism creates lots of pressure that I experienced firsthand. I’ve had to essentially focus the past two and a half years on re-rethinking the benchmarks of what is vital to me, to society, and the way I could make essentially the most impact for founders who want to vary entire industries.”

Paving A Way Forward For The Next Generation of Founders

Founder Ron Robinson noted that Mahdara, who sits on the board and led his company BeautyStat’s seed round, is “a rare find within the enterprise capital space.” He continues: “Not only is Moj one of the crucial connected people I do know in all things tech, economics, politics, culture, and social impact, also they are capable of empathize concurrently with each the investor and entrepreneur.”

Mahdara also worked closely with Patrick Herning and Nykaio Grieco of Thirteen Lune to grow their retail strategy. “As a way to be a unprecedented investor, you need to start as an operator. Moj has been to war and back as a founder and it is thru that have they’ve develop into a superb and strategic investor.” Herning and Grieco added.

As an investor, Mahdara also served as a detailed advisor to Ghia’s founder and CEO, Melanie Masarin, who noted that “Moj’s extensive experience as a founder, operator and entrepreneur makes them a compassionate and incredibly helpful investor. Their enthusiasm is contagious and I leave every conversation with them with somewhat bit more courage to tackle the following day.”

Beyond consumer goods, Mahdara has evolved their expertise from Web2 to Web3, captivated with the probabilities of blockchain technologies. Mahdara worked with Ivan Soto Wright, Co-Founder and CEO of MoonPay. “Their tenacity to diversity and inclusion has been instrumental in helping not only MoonPay hire incredible talent but in driving much-needed representation across Web3.” Wright continued, “They’ve been invaluable in proactively introducing prospective partners and serving as a sounding board for MoonPay as we ideate around recent ways to bring Web3 into tech, culture & entertainment.”

News leaked last month that Mahdara is co-founding and becoming the Managing Partner for Kinship Ventures, alongside Gwyneth Paltrow. Kinship plans to speculate in early-stage consumer goods firms, technology firms and Web3 startups, in line with Axios. The firm is specifically in search of investments within the education tech, health-tech, beauty, essentials and wellness industries, in line with Pitchbook.

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