The “L’Oréal Green Sciences Incubator @Genopole“was inaugurated 28 March 2023. It will welcome high-tech start-ups forwarding disruptive innovations (biotechnologies, green chemistry, green extraction) for use in the cosmetics industry, such as skin or haircare products, resource management tools, or packaging methods, among others.
The “L’Oréal Green Sciences Incubator @Genopole” will support:
- The objective of the world’s number one cosmetics company is to harness abundant minerals and circular processes to biosource 95% of its ingredients by 2030.
- Genopole’s mission of enabling biotech innovation and start-up growth to help ensure industrial sovereignty for the nation and economic vitality for the Île-de-France territory.
The incubated start-ups will receive support on two fronts:
- Scientific: Two fully-equipped laboratories, human expertise (lab manager, health and safety manager, L’Oréal researchers), access to Genopole’s shared-use technological platforms (fermentors, mass spectrometers, etc.).
- Entrepreneurial: Integration in an intense program of personalized accompaniment to speed start-up growth over four business aspects: fund raising, market access, key account partnerships, and communication. Since its inception more than 20 years ago, accelerating biotech development has been Genopole’s mission. More than 250 companies have benefited from Genopole accompaniment for business setup, financing, partnerships with corporations or academic laboratories and much more.
The start-ups retain their full autonomy and intellectual property during and after the year of incubation.
The first two companies welcomed at the incubator are Algentech and Novobiom:
🏆 Algentech: develops technologies to transform plant cells into green factories able to produce ingredients of interest biologically for a more sustainable cosmetics industry. The company is headed by its executive director Isabelle Malcuit and its president Alexander Sorokin.
L’Oréal Recherche & Innovation and Genopole chose Algentech for its very innovative technology, which is well-aligned with the Green Sciences Incubator’s scientific orientations. The start-up’s maturity level also fits nicely into the program of coincubation and business acceleration with L’Oréal and Genopole.
🏆 Novobiom : is a Belgian biotech specialized in the development and marketing of bio-inspired fungal technologies bringing sustainable solutions to bioremediation and the bioeconomy. Jean-Michel Scheuren acts as the company’s CEO and Caroline Zaoui as its CSO.
Novobiom was chosen by L’Oréal Recherche & Innovation and Genopole for the numerous possible applications of its technology and for the opportunity it offers to upcycle L’Oréal’s currently non-valorized plant biomass for the production of high added value ingredients. This collaboration carries a potential to develop a technological platform perfectly aligned with not only the objectives of the L’Oréal for the Future program, but also those of Genopole to accelerate innovations for the bioindustry.
Anne Colonna, Head of Advanced Research at L’Oréal Recherche & Innovation
“Green sciences require extremely specialized, very specific and constantly evolving competencies. These disciplines, whether scientific or technological, are seeing unprecedented acceleration. It is our job to seek out the start-ups and diamonds in the rough that are being created to “seize up-and-coming trends. And that is precisely the raison d’être of the Green Sciences Incubator“.
Stéphane Beaudet, president of Genopole
“This partnership with the world’s leading cosmetics company is an important milestone in Genopole’s history. It offers a fantastic opportunity for the industrialization of the start-ups accompanied by Genopole and aligns with the ambition of a green economy transition for industry, a key element of Île-de-France’s economic development, innovation and internationalization plan“.
Gilles Trystram, Chief Executive of Genopole
“The 21st century’s industrial revolution will be born of green chemistry biotechnologies. I am delighted by this partnership that we were able to build upon a foundation of shared visions and values. The L’Oréal Green Sciences Incubator @Genopole will stimulate the advent of disruptive innovations for the urgently needed green economy transition, the decarbonization of industry and the elaboration of biomanufacturing pathways born of the most promising progress in life sciences knowledge“.
David Bodet, Deputy Director of Genopole and Chief Executive of SEM Genopole
“We welcome a group like L’Oréal with great pride at the biocluster, where it will find a turnkey ecosystem that we can use together to springboard the increasing importance of start-ups and that of their access to markets“.
