Prose 10K Emerging Entrepreneurs Grant for AANHPI Founders

Grant Overview

$10,000 cash boost for Asian American, Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander entrepreneurs ready to scale

Donor: Prose, in partnership with Ellis Brooklyn

About: In the back room of every strip-mall salon, inside the kitchen incubator behind a family restaurant, or in a one-bedroom apartment turned candle studio, AANHPI founders have been quietly rewriting the American dream. Prose, a Brooklyn-born beauty brand that built its reputation on hyper-personalized hair care, noticed these stories weren’t getting the stage they deserved. So they teamed up with Ellis Brooklyn (the fragrance house famous for clean, nuanced scents) and wrote a check for $10,000 with one simple instruction: “Find the next wave of AANHPI entrepreneurs and hand it to them.”

What Makes This Grant Different

Most beauty-brand grants lean on product seeding or influencer requirements. Prose strips the noise away. No mandatory posts, no SKU commitments, no strings beyond the founder’s promise to keep building. Instead, the application reads like a conversation: “Who are you when no one’s watching?” Judges—an internal panel of Prose and Ellis Brooklyn executives—score on authenticity, clarity of mission, and the founder’s plan to reinvest the $10K. Past shortlisters include a Hawaiian skincare line reclaiming native botanicals, a Vietnamese coffee roaster bringing single-origin beans to bodegas, and a Samoan-owned wellness app that pairs workouts with ancestral chants. The common thread? A brand story that feels lived-in, not focus-grouped.

Inside the Application

The Typeform flows in three acts:
– Act I: You – a 150-word founder snapshot, plus one photo that captures your personality (think candid, not headshot).
– Act II: Your Business – revenue range, launch date, and a 200-word “why now” statement.
– Act III: Your Vision – optional 3-minute video (phone quality is fine) showing your workspace, your product in action, and the change you want to make.

Timeline & Leverage Points

Applications close at 8 a.m. ET on August 2, 2025. Finalists are notified in September, winners announced October 6. Between now and then, the smartest move is to tighten your narrative arc. Our U.S. grant specialists can workshop your 200-word statement until it feels like a TED talk in miniature.

Strategic Next Steps

If you’re serious about turning this $10K into a launchpad, pair the grant with longer-term funding. Browse our curated list of for-profit business grants to map a 12-month capital stack. Need polish? Grantaura’s review team will line-edit every word, color-correct your hero photo, and storyboard your optional video—because in a pool this tight, nuance wins.

Focus: AANHPI entrepreneurs, emerging brands, cash grant, beauty & wellness, consumer goods, storytelling

Region: United States

Eligibility:
– Founder must identify as Asian American, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander
– Business must be legally registered in the United States
– Must be the original founder or equal co-founder
– Open to pre-revenue through early-growth stage (no upper revenue cap)

Benefits:
– $10,000 unrestricted cash grant
– Spotlight on Prose and Ellis Brooklyn social channels (1.2 M combined reach)
– One-year mentorship check-ins with Prose brand team

Deadline: August 2, 2025

Terms:
– AANHPI: Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander heritage
– Pre-revenue: businesses that have not yet recorded sales
– Early-growth: businesses with annual revenue under $1 M
– Unrestricted cash: funds may be used for any legitimate business expense