Sephora North America is celebrating the Accelerate Program’s five-year anniversary with the announcement of the 2020 Cohort. This year also marks the program’s achievement of its goal of supporting 50 women-led businesses by 2020.
 
Sephora Accelerate 2020 features two new global territories, Germany and Singapore, totaling 10 countries this year. The programming remains focused on guiding founders on their journey of achieving individual business goals through a multi-month program led by Sephora executives including mentorship, marketing stewardship, networking, social media training, growth plans and funding strategy planning.
 
Some of the program’s key milestones so far include:
 

• More than $850,000 in grants and funding to participating founders, with funds going toward things like fulfilling purchase orders, purchasing inventory, scaling operations and new hires.
• Assisting every merchandising brand in the program with securing space in a major retailer, if not within Sephora.
• The launch of seven new beauty brands at Sephora stores across the world, including LXMI, Vitruvi, Skylar, The 7 Virtues, Ahal, AloeLab and Ho Karan.

 
“Our goal with the Sephora Accelerate program was to not only help 50+ high-potential, women-led businesses get their big break, but to also create a lasting and sustainable community for all those involved to benefit from long after their participation in the program,” said Corrie Conrad, VP, Sephora Stands (D&I, Social Impact, and Sustainability) for Sephora. “The program is ever-expanding, and with brands from Germany and Singapore on board for the first time this year, we look forward to building an even richer and more diverse experience now and into the future.”
 
Giving a Boost to Women
 
As a member of the 2020 Accelerate cohort, the 13 new founders will participate in programming dedicated to fostering brand growth throughout the year. Each member will have access to:
 

• A one-week “boot camp” with guidance from Sephora corporate employees, beauty mentors, entrepreneurs and other brand founders whose products are available at Sephora.
• Personalized one-on-one mentoring for specific business challenges from Sephora leaders and beauty industry experts.
• Monetary grants to support their business endeavors.
• An invitation to pitch at the Sephora Accelerate Demo Day, where they present their company to industry experts, venture partners and Sephora leaders to gain investments, advice on business growth tactics and partnerships.

 
Congratulations to the members of the 2020 Accelerate cohort:
 

• Angela Caglia, founder, Angela Caglia Skincare (U.S.)
• Kailey Bradt, founder, OWA Haircare (U.S.)
• Ada Juristovski, co-founder, Nala Care (Canada)
• Helena Mendes, founder, Mawena (France)
• Zaffrin O’Sullivan, co-founder, Five Dot Botanics (UK)
• Jennifer Baum, founder, Gitti (Germany)
• Renate Lozano, founder, Own Authentic Cosmetics (Mexico)
• Fernanda Kawazoe, co-founder, Sobrebarba (Brazil)
• Jasmine Kang, founder, Skinlycious (Singapore)
• Aileen Wei, co-founder, Zero Waste Beauty (China)
• Keira Rumble, founder, Habitual Beauty (Australia)
• Kymberlee Hill, co-founder, Curl IQ (U.S.)
• Dawn Myers, founder, The Most (U.S.)