L’Oreal buys AR/AI startup

L’Oreal has acquired Modiface, a Canadian venture that creates Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence tech for beauty brands, including Sephora and Estée Lauder. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The French cosmetics giant has form in this area, developing an app called Makeup Genuis that lets users see themselves wearing virtual cosmetics. And L’Oréal brand Kérastase has launched “the world’s first smart hairbrush”. Lubomira Rochet, Chief Digital Officer of L'Oréal, says: "We are thrilled to welcome ModiFace to L'Oréal to become the heart of our digital services R&D. With its world-class team, technologies and sustained track record in terms of beauty tech innovations, it will support the reinvention of the beauty experience around innovative services to help our customers discover, try and chose products and brands. We want to pioneer this new page of the beauty industry and serve our customers with innovative services and experiences." 

ModiFace will be part of L'Oréal's Digital Services Factory, a network that designs and develops new digital services for the group's brands. Parham Aarabi, Founder and CEO, comments: "The acquisition provides an incredible opportunity to innovate on beauty AR and AI at an unprecedented scale, the results of which will shape the beauty industry for the decades to come. Our entire team and I are extremely excited to be joining the L'Oréal family, and look forward to the AR/AI-enabled future that we will create together."