In the cosmetics industry, much of the disruption happens among the startups. CosmeticsDesign’s editors Kirsty Doolan, Amanda Lim and Cassandra Stern joined forces in Paris for In-Cosmetics Global 2024 to get a worldwide perspective on the potentially game-changing startups they would invest in.
Here are their predictions on the ones to watch for 2024...
Kirsty Doolan, Editor CosmeticsDesign Europe: ExoLab Italia
With exosomes a current industry focus, Kirsty Doolan’s big bet for 2024 is ExoLab Italia, a startup specialising in plant-derived exosomal technologies from Italian organic fruits and vegetables.
Exosomes – extracellular vesicles naturally released by cells in all living organisms – promote healing and regeneration in the skin.
“This one called Exo Elixir is really exciting,” says Doolan. “It’s derived from alpine rose petals and is titrated in L-Ascorbic acid. It comes in a powder format.”
Amanda Lim, Editor Cosmetics Design Asia: Haut AI
For Amanda Lim, it’s tech company Haut AI that shows most promise. It specialises in skin analysis and recommendations based on generative AI technology.
“They’re going to launch something really soon called Skin Chat which is like Chat GPT for skin care: ask it a question and it will come up with some recommendations. Everyone agrees that generative AI is going to be the thing for the future so that’s the one I would put my money on.”
Cassandra Stern, Editor CosmeticsDesign USA: Potion
US editor Cassandra Stern was also betting on tech and chose Potion AI, an ingredient search tool that helps skin care formulators find the exact ingredients they need.
“You can also use it to reverse engineer those searches,” she says, “meaning you can look up ingredients based on the desired benefits you want to achieve. I think it's a really intriguing concept that capitalises on the current trends in the AI space and that’s why Potion AI is on my watchlist.”