Rare Beauty Brands is bringing a brand incubation initiative with JCPenney along with sponsors Black Beauty Collective and Black Girl Ventures to introduce the Lift Beauty Accelerator.

“At Rare Beauty Brands, we are deeply passionate about the transformative power of entrepreneurship and have been privileged to host incubator programs over the past three years. This year, we are thrilled to introduce our newly rebranded initiative, Lift Beauty Accelerator,” said Chris Hobson, CEO of Rare Beauty Brands. “Working closely with past winners has been an incredible experience, and we are eagerly anticipating this year’s applicants. We are honored to collaborate with JCPenney and other amazing partners in our mission to uplift underrepresented founders in the beauty industry.”

Lift Beauty Accelerator was created to empower female-identifying founders from underrepresented backgrounds. In 2024, the Lift Accelerator will support five early-stage beauty brands from these communities with $10,000 grants, retail distribution, mentorship with beauty executives and more.

Winners will receive a minimum of $10,000 to each of the five program-winning brands; an opportunity to pitch JCPenney for potential in-store or online product distribution; a one-year membership in the BBC and placement in Chicago & Los Angeles storefronts; a cross-functional team of industry experts from Rare Beauty Brands and their partners; mentoring focused on real-time needs instead of an established curriculum, allowing guidance to be personalized to each winner; claims support testing, The Benchmarking Co.; product testing, validated claims support; product registration, The Good Face Project; retail support software and VOB, BeautyFluent; and a one-year membership, Independent Beauty Association.

Applications opened on June 3, 2024, and the deadline to submit is July 18, 2024, at 5 pm ET. Winners will be announced in late September.

For entry criteria, go here.