Invest in KOKOBÉRNA

"Sustainable luxury is the perfume of life that is lived in harmony with nature."

Meet Our Founder

Belinda Kǒkóèkà Bassey Ephraim was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria into an Efik royal family and hails from a dynasty of female West African herbalists, 14 generations and counting.

During her childhood, Belinda was intrigued by the tribal adornment of aristocratic Efik women as they went through various ancient beauty rituals in preparation for womanhood and the rites of marriage.

Ephraim's love for beauty and wellness began at an early age, in the royal Efik courts of Old Calabar Kingdom, Nigeria, where she apprenticed with her grandmother, a renowned royal healer and herbalist, who specialized in crafting intricate indigenous medicinal herbal remedies for use in divine beauty treatments.

The invaluable lessons learned as a young apprentice on the fine art of beauty, the therapeutic management of disease, and the healing power of traditional African plant medicines, would remain in her heart.

Ephraim went on to continue her studies in America and advance her career becoming a successful Wall Street investment banker with Merrill Lynch Capital advising Fortune 500 companies on their merger and acquisition strategies.

After surviving a death experience, she felt a calling to journey back home to fully rest and recover. During her time there, she remembered that both her mother and grandmother had told stories about an ancient skincare formulation which her female ancestors developed centuries earlier but which required a laborious process to create. Since access to these remedies were not generally available to all, Ephraim would spend time in her home country researching, cataloguing over 400-years of her foremothers' remedies as far back as 1611, and apprenticing under the guardianship of artisan herbalists to learn the fine art of recreating these divine skin care treatments using traditional methods.

In identifying and refining the intricate composites of the bio-dynamic formulating process that was used; diligently researching the healing power of the indigenous herbs, nocturnal flowers, and medicinal bush plants used in traditional African medicine; and meticulously investigating clinical studies on each ingredient, the result of which was a combination of 65 thoroughly researched nutrient-rich indigenous plant ingredients and extracts with a proven record of safety and efficacy.

The seed of KOKOBÉRNA was planted and Ephraim's first formulation, the sacred crown jewel of the brand, HEALER’S GOLD™ Oil, was born. At first, Ephraim used herself as a test subject applying the oil daily. Almost instantly, she noticed the oil remarkably calmed down her eczema and made her dry skin feel silky soft. The oil also effectively repaired the pigmented scar tissue and significantly reduced the excess keloid growth. Then her sisters, her mother, and a few of her closest friends. The results were so dramatic yet consistent and the ensuing request to produce more and more was unending, so that encouraged her to consider commercial production.

The unwavering commitment to preserve her family's values and legacy, led to the laborious curation of the comprehensive heritage library of proprietary traditional African remedies that are also based on scientific research.

Today, the emblematic collection is made by our brilliant in-house manufacturing team and shipped by our shipping team. The skincare products come with an average of 94 per cent certified organic ingredients and the medicinal herbal tea supplements are pesticide-free and contain 100 per cent certified organic ingredients. All of the ingredients are 100 per cent sustainably-sourced and traceable by KOKOBÉRNA. Learn more about our process.

A global citizen who has intercontinental living experiences across Africa, Europe, and America, Ephraim enjoys representing the refined and authentic qualities of West African “art de vivre” around the world.

A life-long learner, women's health advocate, and multi-hyphenate, she is host of the KOKOBÉRNA podcast, a certified holistic health & functional nutrition coach, a mindfulness-based stress reduction meditator, and currently aligning her deep knowledge of traditional African medicine with identical principles that traditional Ayurveda medicine provides. Lastly, she believes the ability to live an abundant healthy lifestyle lies in one's conscious awareness of the integrative relationship between beauty + wisdom + well-being™.

From Mother Earth which provides a tremendously powerful materia medica, to the excellent quality of our bio-dynamically handcrafted products and the lasting promise they deliver, to the endearing relationship between the brand and its devotees who are discerning and expect the best; this is the KOKOBÉRNA way.

Do The Products Work?

Looking back, we were thrilled to finally have products that worked and didn't irritate or cause reactions to the skin and were nurturing to the skin's physiology and micro-biome. So, we decided to test the viability among non-friends and started selling on Amazon for feedback and refining. We made a few tweaks to the formulas and our packaging based on our learnings and decided to 100 per cent control our value chain and distribution by launching our very own e-Commerce platform and start a new business.

Our first review! 

My skin is thanking me everyday!

I am in my early 30's, have extremely pale, sensitive skin, and recently had a baby so my skin took a huge hit this past year. I started using retinols and hyaluronic acids to try to reverse the little fine lines, and enlarged pores that sprung up. It turned into a cycle of peeling and healing, in hopes of seeing results. THEN CAME KOKOBERNA! The first application was shocking! It soothed my irritated and sad skin and relived tautness and redness almost immediately. Relief! The serum absorbed immediately, and my skin started showing signs of life - glowing! That first night, I mixed the serum with a few drops of the face oil. That gave it a little extra boost of moisture, which quickly absorbed as well. Since then I've stopped using all my other strong acidic peels! My regimen has become simply to cleanse my skin, then use the serum and oil in different combinations, under my makeup and the compliments are rolling in! My girlfriends, who have witnessed my spiral into exhaustion, suddenly all started starring, noticing my skin. My pores are smaller, my skin is calm and healthy and even. Some of my friends have even used the word "flawless," imagine that! I've also definitely noticed a reduction in fine lines, which I attribute to the effective shot of moisture and added plumpness from using KokoBerna products. Long story short, I am in love with their products. It works wonders and smells divine. It makes my skin happy. The quality is silky smooth, and the results are real.

Why Are The Products So Effective... Instantly?

A Pop-Up Experiment At The Height of A Global Pandemic

We did one final test for the marketability of the product.

We decided, at the height of the global pandemic, to take advantage of the favorable retail environment and go find our customers. We reached out to brokers and actively explored locations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami, and although our dream was to always open a flagship boutique in Lagos, Paris, or New York, Chicago chose us for our first pop-up boutique!

We initially tested the market Feb 2021 and again in May 2021 with Local Edition Luxury Market. The feedback and in-person interactions validated our assumptions. We took the plunge, moved to Chicago, and opened our pop-up  boutique July 2021 on Chicago's well-heeled Gold Coast neighborhood on Michigan Avenue. During 2H21, we acquired 132 customers, received 44 5-star reviews, and 23% of customers repeat purchases.

Now we know who our customers are, what their needs are, and how we can better serve them.

Funding Will Help Us

Taking our learnings off-line and incorporating them online to integrate and build a solid high-touch omnichannel, we know that in order to bring our marketing strategies to life and scale our business, we need to raise outside funding. With this raise, we are looking forward to freeing up our time to work on the forward-looking building of the business.

Use of the funds will support a 12-month runway and go towards:

• Hiring an experienced Content Marketer to strategize and create high-quality content that can be used throughout our marketing funnel to drive website traffic and increase both conversion and retention rates in order to grow forecasted revenues to $750K in 2022.
• Hiring a part-time Associate to support our founder with operations including attending to customer inquiries.
• Initiate targeted ad spend to acquire new customers and grow customer base from 132 to 1,530 by end of 2022. The successful acquisition of these customers will support our revenue forecast.
• Increase customer repeat rate from 23% to 50% by end of 2022.
  
• Identifying areas of future product roll-outs and digital membership programs to support integrative whole-body health and wellness for our customers.

By coming to Wefunder, we intend to increase our sphere of influence by attracting a lead investor and a team of amazing advisors from seasoned entrepreneurs with successful exits managing prestige, luxury brands to marketing experts.

The Competitive Landscape

From our bottles to our eco-sustainable efforts, we are nothing like our competitors. We uphold the excellence of our culture and being a contemporary West African woman with living experiences across Africa, America, and Europe, I intimately understand health, beauty, and wellness from a global and multicultural perspective.

I'm also a certified functional health and nutrition coach; the ability to holistically understand the physiological mechanisms of the human body is fundamental to our natural, organic formulations that are based on real scientific, evidence-based research.

We also do not identify with trends. We do not outsource our manufacturing. We maintain full control of our value chain to include ethically sourcing our 100% certified organic aromatherapeutic grade essential oils and natural plant-based extracts from conscious suppliers in West Africa, here in America, and across the world. In simple yet profound ways, this is why making the very best product matters as we push the envelope and set new standards.

The Global Market Opportunity

KOKOBÉRNA's cross-industry product strategy is to initially focus on the combined $40.54B U.S. premium beauty and personal care; herbal/traditional products; herbal tea markets; and healthy eating, nutrition, weight loss and mental wellness markets. With our unique advantage as a growing West African heritage and luxury brand, we are well-positioned to tap into the $1.44 trillion global potential.

In 5 years, KOKOBÉRNA will be recognized as a best-in-class, purpose-driven, and conscious health, beauty, and wellness brand. We project:

• Growing net revenues to $31.9 million by 2026
• Growing our customer base from 132 to 45,818 customers, and
• Improving our customer repeat rate from 50% to 75%.

Our global expansion, will be supported by an IPO or alignment via a strategic acquisition that will allow the company to leverage its parents' balance sheet to grow at unicorn speed.

Our Devotees

Our marketable audience is vast but the niche audience is what thrills us. We know who our customers are and the beauty of it is that larger beauty companies follow trends and we do not. Because we enjoy missing out on trends, the authenticity of the KOKOBÉRNA brand is our trump card. The ability to intimately develop direct, one-to-one relationships with our devotees allows us to treat them like VIPs. They truly appreciate the personalized interaction which makes them feel heard and allows them to open up and share their health, beauty, and wellness concerns.

This has been key to the traction we've seen to date and a driver for future product roadmap.

When they discover KOKOBÉRNA, they are enthralled because our products, solutions, and services are relevant. It is a perfect situation... unintentionally, the market is creating our audience and growing it. We just need to dial in our marketing efforts to fully capture their attention and get our natural organic skincare products in their hands, on their faces, and in their bodies. 🤍

Our current customers are evangelists but we like to think of them as devotees. To encourage their affiliation with the brand, we implemented strategies such as our Loyalty Program which enables devotees to earn KOKOBÉRNA Reward Dollars with each purchase and/or review submitted. To date, we've seen a 20% and 35% redemption rate on purchase rewards and reviews submitted, respectively.

To further boost our customer repeat rate, we've implemented a new Subscription Program that encourages automatic replenishment with perks along the way to include the 6th auto-replenishment to be complimentary. The Subscription Program allows customers to set their own frequency within a range of 1-6 months so they never have to run out and the flexibility to adjust or cancel at anytime is available within their kokoberna.com account.

Our Devotees LOVE Us

KOKOBÉRNA is about aspiration + diversity + inclusivity... built in and not as a trend or an afterthought. It is who we are and our customers reflect that. Our customers are highly affluent mature women over the age of 35 who are educated, high-income earners, and diverse across a multicultural landscape. This is an untapped customer in the luxury health, beauty, and wellness space - 11 million of them in the U.S. with $3.3 trillion buying power and growing. Once they discover KOKOBÉRNA, they love us! They introduce the brand to their children and significant partners... which has allowed the brand to organically expand its reach to Millennials, Zoomers, and men.

Why do they love us? They love us because our products work, we embrace them, and our customer service is best-in-class across the board. We ask questions. We educate. We offer virtual consultations to include expert skincare and wellness advise considering our functional nutrition expertise. We are responsive in our communications wherever they are located across the U.S., Dubai, India, or Guadeloupe.

We are thoughtful about the details. We care. And it shows.

I have tried the cleanser, toner, serum, face oil and mist and they are divine! My skin looks hydrated, fresh and has a nice glow. In addition to the wonderful products, Belinda, the owner and founder of Kokoberna, is a wealth of knowledge and excellent resource on key natural ingredients for the skin. She also took the time to walk me through what each product does and showed me how to use them. I definitely recommend these products to anyone who wants to reset their skin for a fresh, clean hydrated glowing look.

Holiday couple facials for my spouse & I were magnificent! The ambience and sounds were calming to all of our senses. An immaculate space that made us comfortable and safe. The owner provides detail knowledge relating to the unique ingredients in the products. The facial experience is transcending - both spiritual and regal. Very grateful and now glowing! We purchased products and booked additional facials as gifts for other family members.

Belinda is amazing, a magical soul! Thank you so much! I really appreciate your dedication and all your knowledge you shared. You inspired me and help me to open myself to the possibilities and believe in my future self. And you are so generous!! Thank you so much!!

The Start of Something Beautiful

KOKOBÉRNA is a combination of two words: Kǒkóèkà– our founder's tribal name has a rich ancient history in the Efịk culture to mean “mother’s daughter” AND Bernadette - named after Saint Bernadette of Lourdes that was given during our founder’s coming of age confirmation rite of passage, to mean “strong, brave one”.

It is our belief the origin of our name reflects the essence of our brand and its destiny; an ideal that mirrors the substance of the KOKOBÉRNA Woman.

We understand KOKOBÉRNA is not for everyone. We are intentional and purpose-driven. We are data-driven and believe a purposeful business can be a unicorn.

A force for good, join our mission to uplift and delight our customers; a mission that is deeply rooted in our brand ethos and core values. In turn, we donate 5% of every sale to uplift humanity especially women and young girls.

We can't wait to see you on the other side.

Welcome to the tribe and may you always be #kokobernabeautiful.