KJ Miller and Amanda Johnson are two friends who felt boxed into a corner in the beauty industry before taking matters into their own hands with Mented Cosmetics . They launched their own makeup line with the perfect organic nude lip products for women of color with just about $10,000 in savings. That led them to being the 15th and 16th black women to ever raise $1M in capital and expanding their products to lip glosses, an eyeshadow palette, nail polish and more. Today it was announced that Mented Cosmetics raised $3M in its latest round of funding. CircleUp Growth Partners is the lead investor in the series seed and focuses on early-stage consumer brands with a “data-driven, scalable approach to investing in visionary founders.” The first time around, KJ and Amanda pitched to more than 80 VCs. But this round, Miller says they pitched to about 30 VCs in total. And they found themselves in a position to say “no,” allowing them to be intentional about working with their investors....