Live Tinted, the beauty brand and platform started by influencer Deepica Mutyala, has raised a seed round from some big-name beauty investors, like Bobbi Brown and Birchbox cofounder Hayley Barna.
Live Tinted is an online community focused at "every shade in between." Mutyala started the site after her dark circles beauty tutorial — where she used red lipstick as a color corrector — went viral. Earlier this year, Live Tinted launched its first beauty product, the Huestick, a $24 eye, lip and cheek product in shades meant to be flattering on all skin tones.
Mutyala plans to build out Live Tinted's product assortment with the new influx of capital, which also came from Payal Kadakia, cofounder of ClassPass; Jaclyn Johnson, founder of Create and Cultivate; Silpa Shah, cofounder of Cuyana; Allison Statter and Sherry Jhawar, founders of Blended Strategy Group, and Shivani Siroya, founder of Tala. The business also has the backing of Female Founders Fund, Halogen Ventures and XFactor Ventures.
She also said she's planning to build up the team and build more engagement tools on the Live Tinted web site, as well as launch internationally.
Mutyala, who is of Indian descent, has always been a beauty enthusiast. But when she was younger, wandering the aisles of her local drugstores, she didn't feel like there were products or editorial images that showed girls who looked like her. She wound up working at Birchbox, and as she was applying to business school, her second-ever YouTube video went viral.
"It was my second video I ever posted online. It has 10 million-plus views now. When it hit 4 million views, I got asked to go on the “Today Show,” and I quit my job that day," Mutyala said. She realized she had the chance to build momentum around herself to one day launch a beauty line, and she decided to go for it.
"After being in the industry from the corporate side and beauty influencer side, I just really saw there was this huge miss of a place and a home where people could come to and feel like they felt represented and saw themselves reflected and could have their voice be heard," Mutyala said.
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