Thanks to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) amendment to the Securities Act of 1933, that went into effect in June 2015, small companies can effectively go public and raise up to $50m over the course of 12 months from both accredited and non-accredited investors.
(Accredited investors meet a set threshold of income and net worth and are thereby allowed to invest in securities that are not registered with the SEC. While non-accredited investors are ‘the average person’: individuals earning less than $200K/year and with a net worth less than $1m.)
PROVEN Skincare Founder Ming Zhao is Going Public
“Entrepreneurs found businesses based on their passion, but only customers can make them successful,” states Ming Zhao, Co-Founder (along with Dr. Amy Yuan) of PROVEN Skincare, in today’s media release announcing the brand’s participation on the first season of Going Public.
“It makes perfect sense,” she says, “that we would share the continued success of PROVEN with the people who help make it happen. Raising funding through ‘Going Public’ will help strengthen our community of investors, customers and advocates, and enable us to bring value to more people.”
The 10-episode reality entrepreneurship series will feature 5 companies and their founders, following their efforts to raise capital. The first season, which Zhao and PROVEN Skincare will be a part of, will also include Jeff Hoffman, Chair of the Global Entrepreneurship Network, and Jaime Schmidt, Founder of Schmidt’s Naturals (now owned by Unilever) as mentors to the participating founders.
Lauren Simmons—well-known as the second African American woman trader on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the youngest woman trader on NYSE—will host the series. “The moment I heard about this project, I knew I had to be a part of it,” Simmons told the press last year when her role with Going Public was announced.
“America's entrepreneurs are so much more than just the Silicon Valley tech guys who get most of the attention—and most of the investment,” she said, adding that, “I can't wait to share the untold stories of exciting and ambitious founders from across the country who, like me, are paving the way doing something completely out of the box.”
A digital-first approach to capital raising make sense for PROVEN Skincare
As regular readers of Cosmetics Design know, PROVEN Skincare is as much a tech company as it is a beauty brand. The AI-driven personalized skin care brand leverages a proprietary skin care database, comprising some 20,000 ingredients, to formulate product.
So it stands to reason that the brand is making use of this novel, contemporary capital raising opportunity: “PROVEN will be seeking investment through a public offering under the Regulation A+ securities exemption. Expressions of interest in PROVEN can be made through its investment website. For updates on the show, visit goingpublic.com and join the conversation on Twitter at @goingpublic and Instagram at @goingpublic.”
