Following a successful social media campaign, CurlMix is now on track to become self-sustaining once more.
As AFROTECH™ previously reported, the clean, natural haircare line was founded by Kim and Tim Lewis, who first appeared on “Shark Tank” with their idea in 2019 but went on to raise funds on their own. Kim announced on Nov. 1, 2025, that the company was on the brink of closing if they did not receive 20,000 orders within 60 days. It wouldn’t be the first time the brand has sought community support. They previously raised $3.6 million in a 2021 crowdfunding campaign, and three years later, an additional $5.7 million was raised in a separate campaign.
In a follow-up post on the business’s health, Kim admitted the funding campaign was not enough to keep the company in operation. She described 2025 as “the most difficult year in business” in a post shared on Instagram, citing challenges such as taxes, increased tariffs, and ingredient costs, as well as shipping delays. A decrease in staff from 40 to 14 partially attributed to issues too.
“Everyone on my team is doing two to three different jobs and we hire locally stateside for most of our roles, and it has just been so hard to stay alive. So many of my friends’ businesses have closed, and I made a post about this last year that we didn’t want to be one of them,” Kim said at the time.
Campaign Goal Reached
In the latest update from Kim that comes at the start of 2026, CurlMix has reached the 20,000 orders required. The campaign reached millions and increased its customer base by 10,000.
She shared that this helped the company pay off $500,000 in debt, putting it on track to become self-sustaining, and added four new jobs to the business, which will help to produce more product and push products out faster.
“Thank you, thank you. And then you guys also helped us put a little money in the bank for operating capital. So it’s not enough to like cover us for the entire year or anything like that, but it is enough to kind of get us started for Q1 and allow us to be able to invest in some inventory, manage ads, and make sure that we pay down or manage our short-term debt. So thank you, thank you, thank you,” she expressed in an Instagram post.
Kim also mentions the work is still far from over as she continues to build CurlMix.
“So what we’re gonna be focused on this year is profit self-sufficiency, better cash flow management, faster shipping. So after we get through these pre-orders, we’re gonna try to make it so that future 10-for-10s are ready to ship right away. But that does require capital because you have to put in a few hundred thousand dollars in raw materials before you even launch the product. So that’s gonna take a little while, but that is the goal. And then building to 100,000 orders for 2026 … We did 20,000 in two months. I think we can do [100,000] in 12  months,” she added.

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