L’Oréal and Evonik fund French biotech Abolis to scale next-gen beauty ingredients

13 Sep 2024 --- L’Oréal makes a tri-party agreement with Abolis and global specialty chemicals manufacturer Evonik to boost end-to-end discovery, development and manufacturing of sustainable ingredients for cosmetics. The beauty giant invests €35 million (US$39 million) in a Series A funding round for the French biotechnology start-up.

The agreement is expected to meet L’Oréal For The Future commitments, which the company says prioritizes bio-based ingredients in its formulations and allows sustainable alternatives to be produced at the scale needed to meet the global demand for responsible beauty.

“We are delighted to announce the successful closing of our fundraising with leading industrial partners and industry-focused investors. This strategic funding will fuel our continued growth trajectory, strengthening our position as a European leader in biomanufacturing and microbiome solutions,” says Cyrille Pauthenier, CEO of Abolis Biotechnologies.

L’Oréal and Evonik have minority investments in Abolis, which specializes in tailor-made solutions using microorganisms in the food, healthcare and cosmetics industries. The investment will enable the Genopole-owned company to expand its microbe-powered services to accelerate the industry transition to more sustainable business models.

“Biotechnology as a lever for sustainable transformation is a key component of Evonik’s growth strategy,” comments Bernhard Mohr, managing director of Evonik Venture Capital. 

“Abolis’ competencies in strain development and metabolic engineering ideally complement the expertise of Evonik in fermentation processes, downstream processing and scale-up for commercial production. The strategic collaboration of our Business Line Care Solutions with Abolis and L’Oréal alongside our investment will enable access to a wide range of markets, including cosmetics, nutrition and healthcare.”

Abolis called for motivated industry partners across sectors to grow bio-based ingredients.According to L’Oréal, its investment marks a new, strategic phase of the collaboration, which began in 2020 and two years later led to an extended lab setup. 

Creative collaborations

“Impact-focused” funds like DeepTech & Climate Fonds (Germany), Clay Capital (Singapore), Icos Capital (Netherlands) and the transatlantic investment firm Liberset are also supporting the investment.

“From the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries to food and agriculture, global commitments have been made by the largest brands to transition to biobased across their ingredient portfolios. Having monitored the synthetic biology sector for many years, it’s clear the appetite and commercial buying power is there. But landing on the right solution at the right price and with the ability to do so at scale has been out of reach for most,” says Matthieu Vermersch, co-founder of Clay Capital.

“Abolis has taken a different path, embedding their platform as a trusted first port of call for motivated industry partners across sectors. They have demonstrated traction with key players, developing bio-based ingredients that will pay dividends for human and planetary health. We’re excited to support Abolis’ growth in Europe, and help them make inroads into Asia, where we have strong networks and demand is strong.”

Peter van Gelderen, managing partner at Icos Capital says the company and its “corporate partners such as Nouryon and Bühler look forward to supporting Abolis on their journey to becoming a global market leader in green ingredients, facilitating the sustainability transition of the industry.”

L’Oréal says it invests more than €1 billion (US$1.1 billion) in R&I annually, dedicating a large part to Green Sciences with a biotechnology focus.L’Oréal says it invests more than €1 billion (US$1.1 billion) in R&I annually, dedicating a large part to Green Sciences with a biotechnology focus. The company says biotech-powered green alternatives are  “key” to making a more sustainable portfolio and changing production methods.

L’Oréal innovation focus

L’Oréal has 4,000 researchers in 30 disciples working in 20 research centers across 11 countries and registered 610 patents in 2023. 

Last year, it launched L’Oréal Green Sciences Incubator to collaborate with startups, such as the French Algentech on synthetic plant cell biology, Belgian Novobiom on fungal technologies, and American-French Interstellar on AI-controlled biofarms.

Four years ago, it teamed up with Dutch biotech Micreos and developed endolysin, a protein which targets unwanted bacteria on the skin that causes eczema.

L’Oréal has also made investments, such as the low-carbon microalgae farm specialists Microphyt in 2022, cell-free ingredient manufacturer Debut Bio and a JV with Unilever and Kao on Geo for sustainable ingredients. The end of last year saw the acquisition of Lactobio, a probiotic and microbiome research company.

By Venya Patel