Some people walk into Walmart and come out with dish soap and Doritos. Charles C. Brandon walked in at 19 and came out with a blueprint to disrupt the $15B nail industry. While most were just hunting for a sale in aisle 9, he saw a paint mixer and a beauty aisle, and asked the question that only the bold (and slightly unhinged) ask: Why can't we mix beauty like we mix paint?
Fast forward to 2025, and Blank Beauty just closed a $6M Series A, oversubscribed, of course. This isn’t your average beauty brand trying to make lip gloss go viral. This is AI, robotics, and patented micro dosing systems converging to turn personal care into precision manufacturing. Imagine a four-square-foot kiosk called Huey that can mix 40,000 unique nail polish shades in under two minutes. Now imagine it outperforming every legacy brand on Walmart’s shelves. That’s not hype, that’s hard data.
The round? Led by Evolution VC Partners (shoutout to Gregg Smith, now on the board), Kirker Enterprises (Blank’s raw materials ace), and Epson Robots (yes, the robotics and camera juggernaut). With support from Three Roots Capital, this isn’t just capital, it’s a war chest of strategic alignment. Hardware, supply chain, distribution, all locked in.
From 20,000 units shipped last year to a projected $10M in revenue by 2026, this Knoxville-based crew is scaling like a micro-factory on monster energy. And with a $100K burn and break-even set at 300 polishes per day, they’re skating the fine line between aggressive growth and operational sanity.
Their secret weapon? A system named Dolly, because, of course, East Tennessee doesn’t build anything without a nod to Ms. Parton. Dolly grabs Shopify orders, runs real-time QC, and ships next day. Fully automated. Fully local. Fully genius.
CEO Charles C. Brandon still holds 15% and the reins. CTO Ji Lee, formerly of L’Oréal’s AR team, is engineering precision like it’s Formula 1. CSO Jenny Lam, the company’s longest-tenured force, is keeping the science sharp. With five full-time staff, 15 patents, and expansion plans into custom foundation by 2026, Blank isn’t just playing the game, they’re rewriting the manufacturing model for CPG.
What’s next? Quadrupling Walmart kiosks. Slashing unit costs. Scaling IP into beauty, home paint, and beyond. The vision? To make Blank the OS of personalized product creation, beauty today, anything tomorrow.
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