L’Oréal reveals its top 5 beauty startups
In partnership with London-based startup incubator, Founders Factory, L’Oréal has been working to invest in and scale five early stage startups and co-create two new companies from scratch every year. The collaboration began last summer.
The five companies are:
InsitU, personalised natural skin care, available online
Preemadonna, a Nailbot device and app that enables user to design and print nail art onto their nails via their smartphone
Tailify, a platform connecting big brands to social media influencers to create, track and monetise campaigns
Veleza, an app-based community that collaborate in helping users discover products that best match their needs, providing inspiration, advice and product reviews in real time
Cosmose, a platform that uses sophisticated location technology to enable retailers to target offline consumers via online channels.
How will it work?
L’Oréal and Founders Factory has pledged to support the growth of these startups, looking to do this in various ways over a six-month accelerator programme.
According to the companies, the in-house team of 60 digital experts at Founders Factory will provide hands-on and operational support and mentoring, while L’Oréal will bring them its expertise, access to marketing teams, R&I and ecosystem.
Lubomira Rochet, Chief Digital Officer L’Oréal, said: “We believe that open innovation will be key to identify new disruptive ideas and co-develop new services to meet the aspirations of our consumers. We are excited to champion the next generation of beauty entrepreneurs through our partnership with Founders Factory and accelerate their development by bringing them our expertise of the beauty industry.”
How did they choose?
The companies say they received 180 applications from beauty entrepreneurs across the world, and the decision making process involved a pitching session held at L’Oréal’s headquarters.
Henry Lane Fox, Co-Founder and CEO, Founders Factory, said: “We are only accepting five startups to join our programme per year and so competition is fierce.”
He notes that while it there are hurdles to creating successful businesses, the accelerator programme with L’Oréal is looking to offer support and growth to beauty leaders of the future.
“We understand how incredibly hard it is to build a successful business and know that every founder feels the strain in terms of capital, time and resource. By coupling the expertise of our operating team with the knowledge and scale of L’Oréal, we provide an unrivalled platform for startups looking to make global impact.”
