The Good Face Project raises US$5.65M to enable cosmetic chemists with ingredient intelligence

24 Aug 2022 --- Cosmetic chemistry informatics company, The Good Face Project has raised a US$5.6 million seed investment led by a tech investment company, VMG Catalyst. The funding will be used to expand product experience, accelerate customer adoption and scale the team.

The Good Face Project’s platform enables chemists to develop cosmetic formulas from scratch with ingredient intelligence and real-time regulatory feedback from formula cost and trade name to ingredient list conversion. 

It also allows economies of scale across formulas by supporting validation studies, and the manufacturing process, in a single space that’s easy to navigate, according to the company.

The Good Face Formulator is a cloud-based platform developed by a team of data scientists, chemists and toxicologists.R&D efforts 
The company focuses on creating transparency in developing personal care products and has built the “world’s largest” centralized International Nomenclature Cosmetic Ingredient (INCI) level database, which encompasses up-to-date scientific research as worldwide regulatory and sustainability parameters.

“We think of our platform as an R&D lab in the cloud,” says Iva Teixeira, co-founder and CEO at The Good Face Project. The company, created in 2018 in California, is led by two women entrepreneurs – Ukrainian data scientist Lena Skliarova-Mordvinova and Bulgarian-born technologist Teixeira. 

Other participating investors include Spark Growth Ventures, REDO Ventures, Capsum, EvoNexus and influential industry executives Summer Fridays CEO John Heffner, The Detox Market CEO Romain Gaillard and GoFundMe Co-Founder Andy Ballester.

AI-driven and cloud-based platform
Within 18 months after the initial launch of the company’s platform, Good Face Formulator has helped product creators at brands like Hero Cosmetics, Vegamour, SolaWave and The Honey Pot Company shorten their product innovation cycles and deliver transparent and sustainable products to the market.

The Good Face Formulator, is the company’s cloud-based platform which was developed by a team of data scientists, chemists and toxicologists to help brands and manufacturers overcome the challenge of geographic regulations, consumer certifications and unique retailer standards in the beauty industry.

“The Good Face Project is playing a critical role in helping brands and manufacturers drive efficiencies in their innovation and product development process,” says Brooke Kiley, partner at VMG Catalyst.

Room for growthThe Good Face Project's formulation and regulatory platform for cosmetics support the innovation cycle. 
The business currently focuses on cosmetics and personal care. However, according to the company, the Good Face Project’s core AI-powered, science-backed technology can tackle formula design and optimization in any vertical.

Hence the company is positioned as an industry-agnostic chemistry informatics platform targeting a collective market of over US$1 trillion.

“The Good Face Project is transforming the way brands, manufacturers and ingredient suppliers approach research and development and giving them confidence that their new formulas will include thoughtfully sourced ingredients and meet regulatory requirements while satisfying consumer demand for transparency, safety, and sustainability,” Teixeira informs.

Beauty Investments
In other funding news, Boulevard raised US$70 million in Series C led by Point72 Private Investments allowing it to enhance its investment in engineering and development, speed the delivery of new platform features and expand into additional self-care verticals as a result of the financing.

Beauty tech company Mayvenn implemented a US$40 million Series C funding round led by Cleveland Ave to launch its next major ecosystem expansion and introduce tech-enabled, physical beauty experiences to Walmart stores all over the US. The proceeds from this financing will also help Mayvenn’s digital platform continue to develop new hair stylist productivity tools.

Moreover, US beauty retailer Ulta Beauty spearheaded Prisma Ventures, a digital innovation fund set to invest US$20 million in emerging technology start-ups that seek to shape future online and in-store experiences. With this fund, the company aims to unlock new technology that fuels greater discovery, personalization and convenience.

Edited By Radhika Sikaria