Meet the millennial entrepreneur who just scored a $1 million investment for her inclusive 'Black Girl Sunscreen' brand

• Shontay Lundy is the founder of Black Girl Sunscreen, a company she founded in 2016.
• She founded the company to provide people of color, especially Black people, with a sunscreen that does not leave a white cast on their skin.
• Lundy also says she started the company to help fight the myth that Black people do not need to wear sunscreen at all.
• In an interview with Business Insider, Lundy talks about securing funding for her brand and why it's important for people of color to wear sunscreen.

It was risky, Shontay Lundy said, to create a sunscreen line marketed toward Black people. But it was a risk she was willing to take.

In 2016, Lundy launched her company, Black Girl Sunscreen, saying she was was "underwhelmed" by the number of sunscreen options for women of color. It was especially hard to find a sunscreen that didn't leave a white cast on her dark skin.

"I knew that there had to be a solution to the lack of options," she told Business Insider. "The journey began to find a solution for eliminating white residue and making women of color feel great and look great in the sun."

But still, her business endeavor was quite risky. Mostly, she says, because many Black people don't believe they need to use sunscreen — and therefore simply don't buy it.

"Normally, Black people don't wear sunscreen because we weren't taught to do so," she said. "I didn't know if anyone would purchase Black Girl Sunscreen — however, I did know that I couldn't be the only Black girl that was looking for sunscreen."

"They need to recognize the power of the Black dollar"

Black Girl Sunscreen is currently the only independent Black-owned brand carried full time in Target's sun care section. It's also sold in retailers worldwide. The company's valuation reportedly tops $5 million and earlier this summer, it secured a $1 million investment in private funding, Forbes reported.

Lundy recalls that finding investors was "hard" for her, especially as a Black woman, and says that venture capitalists "can do better to diversify themselves" in terms of what projects and which founders receive their funding.

As previously reported by Business Insider, female founders in 2017 received just 2.2% out of $85 billion in VC funding. And within that, the number of women of color who received funding is even lower — in 2015, First Round Capital found that less than 0.2% of all VC funding goes to businesses that are run by women of color.

"I'm in my mid-thirties, and from what I know now, Black female entrepreneurs have been ignored in the funding space," Lundy told Business Insider. "[VCs] need to recognize the power of the Black dollar and that Black and brown people are creating amazing products and offering great services."

Lundy took particular care to ensure that Black Girl Sunscreen's products are water-resistant and made using natural ingredients, such as avocado, jojoba, cacao, carrot juice, and sunflower oil. The kids' sunscreen line is hypoallergenic, with no added fragrances, no parabens, no silicons, and no aluminum.

Prices for a regular bottle of the SPF 30 begin at $18.99 while the kids' line is $9.99, according to the brand's website.

Lundy says she purposely chose ingredients that would "moisturize" the skin and made sure none of her products left "white residue" on dark skin — one of the biggest complaints Black customers have when it comes to using sunscreen. In hindsight, it seems Lundy made sure her product addressed all the possible excuses people of color might have for avoiding sunscreen.

"Thanks to our melanin, we do have some natural protection from the sun's harmful rays. But make no mistake, we are all susceptible to the damage caused by the sun," she told Business Insider. "We still burn and are susceptible to sun-induced damage such as sunspots, premature aging, wrinkles, hyperpigmentation, and cancer."

And as Rihanna so succinctly made clear this week, sunscreen is not just for the summer. "You gon have wrinkles if you think SPF is seasonal," she clapped back at an Instagram commenter who questioned why the pop star was advertising her brand Fenty Skin's $35 sunscreen, which released this July and specifically advertises its compatibility with all skin tones and "zero chalkiness," at this time of year.

One of Black Girl Sunscreen's top-selling products is its SPF 30 sunscreen

Lundy says Black Girl Sunscreen has continued to see tremendous sales even as the pandemic began to sweep through the country and forced people to social distance and limit outdoor activities. In fact, Black Girl Sunscreen's eCommerce has grown so much this year, the brand feels comfortable enough to launch a new product before the year lets up.

"We refused to let the pandemic slow down our progress," she said. "Our team adopted an 'all hands on deck' mentality to enhance our social media strategy, work longer hours, and increase our marketing efforts."

Lundy contributes the company's massive growth these past few years to Instagram and says that platform is a "cost-effective medium" that allowed her to market and directly interact with her customers. Currently, the company has over 100,000 Instagram followers while the page dedicated to its kids' line boasts over 5,000.

"We are here to educate and start the conversation among people of color to protect their skin from the sun," she said. "Since we have come on the scene, we have seen other sun care brands market toward Black and brown people."

But still, Lundy says, the sunscreen industry is yet another sector that still has a long way to go when it comes to optimizing Black spending power, and creating products that are more inclusive of people of color.

"The industry has now recognized that there is a market," she said." The industry has become aware that black women will spend the money to take care of themselves.