L’Oréal partners with Abolis Biotechnologies and Evonik to advance sustainable biobased beauty goals

The L’Oréal Group has partnered with Abolis Biotechnologies and Evonik to discover, develop and produce dedicated sustainable beauty ingredients to achieve L’Oréal’s goal of 95% biobased ingredients in formulations by 2030. This collaboration complements L’Oréal’s collaboration with Debut to develop biobased alternatives to 12 traditional ingredients.

L’Oréal’s collaboration with Abolis began in 2019 and expanded its laboratory setup in 2022. Under the latest agreement, L’Oréal has made a minority investment in French Abolis. The transaction was executed by its venture capital fund BOLD, which participated in a €35 million financing round, with other participants including Evonik CVC, Deep Tech & Climate Fund (DTCF), Clay Partners, Icos Capital and Liberset.

Barbara Lavernos, L’Oréal Group Deputy CEO for Research, Innovation and Technology, said: “We are proud to invest in Abolis and expand our collaboration to form a close ecosystem together with our historical partner Evonik. By mobilizing the research, innovation and manufacturing capabilities and expertise of our respective companies, we are building an end-to-end value chain that we believe has great potential to change the landscape of bio-based ingredients in beauty.”

“We are delighted to have secured this round of financing, which will allow us to take a new step in biotech innovation. Our collaboration with L’Oréal and Evonik will allow us to create breakthrough solutions to drive sustainable transformation in the industries we serve, including beauty, nutrition and healthcare,” said Cyrille Pauthenier, CEO of Abolis Biotechnologies.

“We are honored to have been selected by L’Oréal as an industrial-scale manufacturer for this project, which will consolidate the long-standing and expanding partnership between Evonik and L’Oréal,” said Ute Schick, Head of Evonik’s Care Solutions Business Line. “We are excited to bring new, blockbuster sustainable ingredients to the global market together with L’Oréal and Abolis.”