L’Oreal & Founders Factory pick startup trio for their latest beauty tech accelerator
Beauty brand L’Oreal has teamed up with London-based digital incubator Founders Factory to name a trio of startups to receive additional backing – two of which have been chosen to participate in the second round of their beauty tech accelerator.
This latter duo includes Sampler, which seeks to help brands manage and measure their product sampling technologies by facilitating a more effective and targeted approach, which will benefit from a six-month accelerator programme. It will be joined by Riviter, a visual search engine employing a patented AI technology with which to recognise products in images and then match them to products for sale online.
A third existing startup within the Founders Factory fold, Alegra, will also be given a leg up by L’Oreal which was drawn on its promise of helping brands build their digital online platforms for content and ecommerce simultaneously on multiple devices.
Lubomira Rochet, L’Oréal’s chief digital officer, said: “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. In this ‘test & learn’ approach, we are supporting 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.”
Henry Lane Fox, CEO and co-founder Founders Factory, said: “We fully understand the difficulties in launching a technology business and we are providing these startups with a competitive advantage; unrivalled support both via our Founders Factory operations team and the insights and scale of L’Oréal.”