‘Thank You’: Chamillionaire Invests in 16-Year-Old Black Girl’s Sauce Company, Owner Talks Impressive Sales and New Deals

Chamillionaire invested in a sauce company that’s owned by a 16-year-old Black girl. (Photo: Bob Levey/Getty Images Sport via Getty Images)

Chamillionaire has invested in a sauce company that’s owned by a 16-year-old girl from Houston, Texas.

The company owned by Tyla-Simone Crayton is called Sienna Sauce, and offers sauces in the flavors of Spicy, Tangy and Lemon Pepper.

Crayton was a runner-up in the contest that Chamillionaire and E-40 created last year, where they offered to give a $25,000 investment to a minority or female-owned startup. The rapper’s investment in the sauce company is said to be under $10,000.

“Sienna Sauce was a runner-up in my pitch competition and I really like tracking this company,” said Chamillionaire in a statement on his site Republic.co. “I invested in Sienna Sauce because I back startups that have domain expertise, resiliency, and a road map that I believe could potentially lead to success.”

Chamillionaire posted a video to his Instagram page on Monday, March 2, where he congratulated Crayton, who also spoke.

“We’re finalizing a deal with seven states and 80 stores, and we are closing a deal, as well, with 16 schools for the sauce to be in their cafeteria,” Crayton revealed. “So when you invest in Sienna Sauce you’re investing in the future.”

Crayton started making sauce at the young age of eight, and last year her company reportedly reached $191,000 in revenue.

The teen is originally from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and when she moved to Texas, she created a sauce that reminded her of one that she loved back home.

Before getting the investment from Chamillionaire, Crayton had won $10,000 in the REVOLT Pitch Competition for her company, along with $25,000 in the Side Hustle Showdown, on ABC’s “Strahan, Sara & Keke.”

The sauce company thanked Chamillionaire for his investment, as well as his co-sign on Tuesday.

“Not only are you supportive but you have extended your platform to help us grow 🙏🏼 THANK YOU 🙌🏽,” the company wrote on Instagram.

Subscribe To The ABS Newsletter — Get our stories in your inbox.

Independent journalism still matters.

We hope this story was worth your time. For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed Black-owned and independently run. We didn't get here by waiting on ad budgets that were never built to prioritize us. Our readers did that.

Corporate support for Black media has always been thin. Outlets like ours get roughly 1% of the $170 billion spent on U.S. advertising each year, and that margin is shrinking further as advertisers walk back the DEI-linked commitments they made in 2020. That's the backdrop. It's not why we're asking.

The wider picture isn't any steadier. Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under, it's rarely the ones built to center a Black perspective from the ground up that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

Latest from Atlanta Black Star

Back to top