L’ORÉAL DELVES FURTHER INTO GREEN SCIENCES WITH MINORITY STAKE BUY-OUT OF FRENCH BIOTECH MICROPHYT

THE WHAT? L’Oréal has announced a strategic partnership with French biotech Microphyt, which sees L’Oréal’s venture capital fund, BOLD (Business Opportunities for L’Oréal Development) acquire a minority stake in the firm. 

THE DETAILS L’Oréal and Microphyt will build a technological platform and will bring material and human resources together to create raw materials from microalgae biomass. 

“The ambition of both companies is to establish a long-term partnership for the development of new cosmetic solutions,” according to a press release. 

The tie up comes after several strategic scientific partnerships recently forged by L’Oréal to strengthen its pioneering Green Sciences ecosystem of Beauty. These include the precision-health company VERILY, the National Institute for Materials Sciences (NIMS) in Japan, the Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) or the Laboratoire de Chimie des Polymères Organiques (LCPO) in Bordeaux.

THE WHY? According to a press release, “This partnership is an additional proof point of L’Oréal’s Research and Innovation strategy towards Greens Science and its investment in innovative biotech start-ups in France, and across the world. 

“This proactive strategy is at the heart of L’Oréal’s 2030 sustainable development program, including the objective that 95% of its ingredients will be bio-sourced, derived from abundant minerals or from circular processes.”

Barbara Lavernos, Deputy CEO, in charge of Research, Innovation and Technology, L’Oréal Group, said: “Our ambition is to collaborate across the world with the most disruptive scientific entities in Green Sciences, in order to collectively develop responsible innovations on a large scale and make them available to as many people as possible. 

“We are very pleased to pursue this new partnership with Microphyt, which will enable us, thanks to its unique natural solutions derived from microalgae, to further accelerate our drive towards more sustainable beauty.”