L'Oréal announces a minority investment agreement in Shinehigh Innovation, a Chinese biotechnology company dedicated to innovation. The aim of both companies is to establish a long-term partnership to co-develop innovative and sustainable beauty solutions. This is the very first investment byopen innovation by L'Oréal in China, via its Shanghai Meicifang Investment Co, Ltd (Meicifang) fund, supported by Bold (Business Opportunities for L'Oréal Development), the group's venture capital fund for strategic innovation. It is also the first investment in connection with the Big Bang Beauty Tech Innovation Challenge, launched by L'Oréal four years ago in China, thus confirming the success of our local ecosystem ofopen innovation.
Founded in 2017 by renowned scientist Professor Jiaheng Zhang, Shinehigh Innovation is a Chinese start-up specializing in cutting-edge supramolecular chemistry. Its intelligent molecule self-assembly technology enables previously impossible combinations of ingredients, resulting in even more effective and longer-lasting finished products to serve our consumers.
This partnership will enable L'Oréal to unleash the full potential of raw materials, overcoming known limitations such as incompatibility, instability and diffusion, and develop innovative formulations with expanded properties for skin, hair and scalp.
Barbara Lavernos, L'Oréal Group Executive Vice President, Research, Innovation and Technology, said: "China's unique and highly dynamic start-up ecosystem is a particularly important catalyst for L'Oréal's future innovation strategy. We are therefore extremely enthusiastic about pursuing this new investment and partnership with Shinehigh, one of China's most innovative biotech start-ups. This collaboration with the world leader in supramolecular technology applied to the cosmetics industry will enable us to bring revolutionary performance products to market. We are delighted to enter into this exclusive beauty partnership with the Shinehigh team."
Fabrice Megarbane, Managing Director, North Asia Zone and L'Oréal China, said: "We are very confident about the long-term future of the Chinese market. After 25 years of development, China has become our source of inspiration for the future of innovation. Firmly convinced of the potential of co-creation, we launched Big Bang four years ago and founded Meicifang, L'Oréal China's investment company, last year. I'm delighted to see that all our efforts have paid off today: investing in Shinehigh Innovation, winner of the 2022 edition of Big Bang. Today, Big Bang is expanding to North Asia, and we look forward to inventing the future of beauty in the North Asian and global markets with many other partners."
Jiaheng Zhang, founder and CEO of Shinehigh Innovation, said: " I'm delighted to be working with the L'Oréal group, a world leader in the beauty industry. We have jointly conducted research into the supramolecular development of multiple active raw materials, in skin care, make-up, hair care and coloring. This latest research is crucial to the emergence and industrialization of cutting-edge supramolecular technology. Our ambition is to explore new possibilities in the research, development and application of raw materials, and to develop them together on the market."
