L'Oréal startup investment: next edition announced

10-Oct-2017 - Last updated on 10-Oct-2017 at 07:13 GMT

Related tags Artificial intelligence Startup company

L’Oréal Group has announced the launch of the second stage of its collaboration with a leading global digital accelerator and incubator, the Founders Factory.

The beauty giant has chosen the next selection of startups for its six month beauty tech accelerator programme, which is part of the L’Oréal and Founders Factory partnership that began in 2016.

The L’Oréal programme indicates areas the company believes have high potential for the industry in the coming period, so is of interest for industry professionals across the supply chain.

The startup companies supported by this new stage of the partnership are threefold: one in the area of product sampling management (Sampler), one in the applications of artificial intelligence for online retail (Riviter), and one that offers services in optimizing beauty brands’ own digital platforms (Alegra).

“Merging the innovation capacities of L’Oréal with those of beauty tech startups creates a powerful synergy which helps to address the aspirations of our consumers and to build a new generation of personalised and smart digital services,” says Lubomira Rochet, Chief Digital Officer L’Oréal,

The startups

Sampler and Riviter are completely new to the programme, while Alegra has already been within the wider Founders Factory accelerator.

Sampler: Founded by Marie Chevrier in Canada in 2013, Sampler has helped hundreds of brands manage and measure their product sampling strategies through a more effective and targeted approach.

Riviter: Created by Andi Hadisutjipto, Kris Woodbeck, and Rachel Chen in the US, Riviter has developed a visual search engine that uses patented AI technology to recognise products in images and matches them to products online, detecting both precise location and detailed attributes of the products.

Alegra: Founded by Alp Ocal in Turkey, Alegra helps brands to build their digital online platforms for content and e-commerce simultaneously on multi devices.

Rochet explains that the Founders Factory programme uses a 'test & learn' approach, and through this L'Oréal is able to support "the development and growth of promising young entrepreneurs by sharing our expertise and network, and in the meantime we invite them to bring new ideas to the digital projects of our brands.

"Open innovation is a win-win strategy that fosters disruptive thinking and pushes forward our digital leadership in beauty.”