McGill University is one of Canada's best-known institutions of higher learning and one of the leading universities in the world. With students coming to McGill from some 150 countries, our student body is the most internationally diverse of any research-intensive university in the country. McGill was founded in 1821 thanks to a generous bequest by James McGill, and since then, we've grown from a small college to a bustling university with two campuses, 11 faculties, some 300 programs of study, and more than 37,500 students. The University also partners with four affiliated teaching hospitals to graduate over 1,000 health care professionals each year. In addition to a stellar faculty, McGill is known for attracting the brightest students from across Canada, the United States, and around the world. McGill students have the highest average entering grades in Canada, and our commitment to fostering the very best has helped our students win more national and international awards on average than their peers at any other Canadian university. The prestigious Rhodes Scholarship has gone to a nation-leading 136 McGill students.

McGill University

FounderFuel is a mentor-driven venture accelerator that helps new startups make progress on the venture path. The company is a four-month intensive program supported by a network of veteran entrepreneurs, operators, and executives. The program pushes companies to refine visions, expand the network and rapidly accelerate output. FounderFuel was founded by Real Ventures in 2011 and is headquartered Montreal, Canada.

FounderFuel

Aim Colours

Aim Colours operates at the intersection of fashion, digital customization, and hardware. Our mission is to enable instant self-expression through tech accessories, offering personalization within seconds via our mobile app while eliminating the need for multiple products. Our initial product focuses on tech-enabled press-on nails, empowering users to change nail colours and designs in real-time directly from their smartphones, eliminating harmful solvents and reducing waiting times for nail customization to mere seconds. Aim Colours is unwavering in our commitment to sustainability and inclusivity. Our vision extends beyond nails as we aspire to apply our technology to a broader array of fashion accessories.

Canada-based AIM Colours offers tech-enabled, color-changing, press-on nails called ePolish for the B2C market. The nails are developed with flexible electronic materials, and users apply the product like regular press-on nails and connect to the company’s mobile app to customize their nail designs in real time. As a provider of wearable electronics, AIM Colours offers a sustainable alternative to regular nail polish, made from plastics. The company aimed to cater to market niches including artists and fashion models.

The intersection of beauty and technology to deliver hyper-personalized products.

Beauty Tech

AIM Colours

Aim Colours personnalise vos ongles à l’aide d’une appli mobile

Canada-based AIM Colours offers tech-enabled, color-changing, press-on nails called ePolish for the B2C market. The nails are developed with flexible electronic materials, and users apply the product like regular press-on nails and connect to the company’s mobile app to customize their nail designs in real time. As a provider of wearable electronics, AIM Colours offers a sustainable alternative to regular nail polish, made from plastics. The company aimed to cater to market niches including artists and fashion models.Key customers and partnershipsAIM Colours has partnered with investors and accelerators like FounderFuel, Startup Montreal, National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP), ventureLAB, McGill University (Dobson Centre’s Lean Startup Program), Mitacs, and Venture for Canada.Funding and financialsIn May 2023, AIM Colours raised CAD 120,000 (~USD 89,000) in a pre-seed round led by FounderFuel

Ipsy provides a subscription-based personalized bundle of beauty products. It uses an online quiz to obtain customer attributes such as skin tone, hair color, and preferred brands and uses its proprietary machine learning technology named “IPSY MATCH” to match products from selected brands with customers.Ipsy provides three customized subscription-based product bundle options: 1) Glam Bag (five deluxe-sized samples for USD 14 per month); 2) BoxyCharm (five full-sized products for USD 30 per month); and 3)Icon Box (eight full-sized products for USD 60 per quarter). Ipsy also enables customers to pick three products out of 12 recommendations, allowing the company to gain insights on customer preferences which are in turn used to improve its recommendation engine.Ipsy ships to the US, Canada, and Mexico with over 3 million active members as of November 2020. As of October 2023, Ipsy had over 3.6 million followers on TikTok and was claimed to be the most followed beauty brand on the platform.In November 2020, Ipsy acquired the subscription-based beauty product provider BoxyCharm in a USD 500 million deal, and, in March 2023, merged the two brands under Ipsy’s brand portfolio.Key customers and partnershipsIpsy’s platform features various makeup brands from over 330 retailers (November 2023).Ipsy creates curated makeup boxes in partnership with celebrities and popular makeup artists such as the founder of the cosmetic brand Anastasia Beverly Hills, Anastasia Soare (March 2023), the American actress and singer, Vanessa Hudgens (July 2023), the british makeup artist, Pat McGrath (October 2023), and the American singer and songwriter, Gwen Stefani (February 2024).Key Competitors : None comparable (Ipsy is the only company in the hub that offers customized subscription boxes for an assortment of various types of beauty products.)

Ipsy

Proven Skincare develops personalized products based on a custom formula that incorporates 45 factors about the user including environment, lifestyle, and skin concerns. Based on the identified skin genome profile, three multifunctional products are developed, i.e. a multifunctional cleanser/toner, a moisturizer, and a night cream/serum. Proven Skincare products can be purchased as a one-off or on a subscription.Proven claims that its proprietary “Skin Genomic Database” consists of over 20 million customer testimonials, 8 million online reviews, and data from over 4,000 scientific papers analyzed with machine learning and natural-language processing to identify the most suitable clean ingredients for each customer.The company also introduced a <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10097?industryIds=39">personalized eye cream </a>duo for day and night use in May 2022. Proven's skincare personalization process received a US <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11478?industryIds=39">patent </a>in July 2022. It introduced a <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24527">personalized Serum </a>in November 2023 which leverages AI to determine the optimal skincare ingredients for each user.Proven Skincare <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11716?industryIds=39">expanded </a>into the European Union (EU) and the UK in July 2022.Key customers and partnershipsThe company announced a partnership with Sephora in January 2023 to bring its personalized skincare solutions to <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16034">Sephora’s </a>digital and brick-and-mortar stores.As of September 2021, Proven Skincare had <a href="https://www.retaildive.com/news/how-high-is-the-ceiling-for-personalized-beauty-brands/606802/">over 100,000 customer </a>s, ~70% of which were repeat shoppers.Funding and financialsFrom its launch in October 2019, the company had reportedly reached a USD 24 million average annual revenue within two years of operation in the North American market, with 80% of customers on a subscription-based sales model.In September 2023, the company raised <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/22322">USD 12.2 million </a>in series A funding led by NewH2 Ventures to enhance its brand presence and expand its team.

Proven Skincare

Function of Beauty is a developer of custom hair care, skincare, and body care products. The company initially focused on hair care and subsequently expanded its focus to skin and body care products in July 2020. Function of Beauty formulates custom products based on an online quiz using an algorithm capable of offering 12 billion custom combinations developed by the company’s founders—a group of MIT engineers and data scientists including Zahir Dossa and Joshua Maciejewski.The company’s products are vegan, cruelty-free, sulphate-free, gluten-free, and paraben-free. Its hair care products have a patented Adaptive f3 Bonding Complex. Function of Beauty’s customized products include shampoo and conditioner (starting at USD 20 as of January 2024), body wash and body lotion (starting at USD 21 as of January 2024) and moisturizer (starting at USD 45 as of January 2024).Function of Beauty carries out product designing, development, manufacturing, and packaging in-house with occasional consultant feedback. Function of Beauty uses automated processes, including a robotic system for order dispensing. The system can use 20–50 ingredients per bottle. As of January 2024, the company shipped to over 48 countries including the US, the UK, Canada, EU countries, and several Asian countries.In August 2021, Function of Beauty acquired Atolla, a custom skincare product developer to combine its proprietary formulations with Atolla's patented skincare technology to offer advanced custom skincare products.Key customers and partnershipsIn September 2022, the company partnered with Canadian retailer <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13191?industryIds=39">Shoppers Drug Mart </a>to launch its personalized hair care products in Canada. In August 2023, Function of Beauty launched a new Function of Beauty <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21500">PRO hair care range </a>in 300 Sephora locations across North America and online. It also has a wholesale partnership with Amazon (<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/30313">June 2024</a>) to offer hair care products through Amazon’s e-commerce platform.

Function of Beauty

Hawthorne is a developer of custom fragrance, body care/grooming, hair care, and skincare products for men. The company launched with fragrances, introduced body care products in 2018, hair care products in 2019, and in January 2020 introduced custom skincare products. An online quiz collects information such as daily routine, lifestyle, taste, and familiarity with grooming products. That information is then analyzed using a proprietary data processing algorithm.Hawthorne claims that the algorithm can match customers with a product that suits their body chemistry, skin type, hair type, and lifestyle with a 97% accuracy. As of January 2024, the company’s personalized fragrances were priced at USD 50–60 and skin and hair care products were priced at USD 17–21. The company ships to the US, Hawaii, and Alaska.Key customers and partnershipsHawthorne’s perfumes are developed in collaboration with award-winning perfumers such as Rodrigo Flores-Roux, Olivier Gillotin, and Quentin Bisch.

Hawthorne

Prose develops custom hair care products and hair care routines based on responses to an online quiz. The quiz obtains customer information about hair type, current hair care habits, diet, stress level, physical activity and factors such as ultraviolet (UV) exposure, pollution, humidity, wind, and other <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9356?industryIds=39">micro-local factors </a>. The quiz also takes customer’s preferences such as vegan or gluten-free requirements into consideration. The information is processed through Prose’s proprietary algorithm to create individualized products. Prose uses a semi-automated approach to manufacturing where the production is carried out by a chemist with the aid of automated mixing and packaging.In April 2021, the company introduced “Root Source,” a hair supplement to treat environmental causes of hair loss. The product consists of two pills, a universal soft gel and a customized capsule, and, as of January 2024, was priced at USD 57.2. The product was developed based on insights derived from information collected through Prose’s online quiz, which revealed that around 85% of the brand’s customers experience hair loss. Root Source’s clinical trials claim around 93% of users experiencing improved hair growth after taking the supplement for 90 days. Prose also introduced a <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/12245?industryIds=39">personalized styling gel </a>specifically targeting curly hair in August 2022.In June 2023, Prose expanded into <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19873">skincare </a>with an AI-powered system offering customized formulas based on individual needs, targeting multiple skin concerns, and addressing factors such as skin type, diet, stress, pollution, and climate while allowing fragrance and texture customization. In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/28430">April 2024 </a>, the company launched an AI-based beauty tech customization platform, Singular. The company claims to have completed over one million consultations in the 11 months leading up to November 2019.

Prose

Companies that leverage technologies such as AI/ML and AR/VR  to enable cosmetic producers to offer personalized product offerings to consumers. This could include virtual-try-ons for cosmetics such as makeup and hair color in addition to solutions for skin analytics.

Companies that formulate customized solutions for skin, leveraging technologies such as AI/ML to conduct skin analysis, and provide personalized recommendations, which are directly sold to consumers.

Companies that leverage biotechnology, nanotechnology, or other technologies to develop biomaterials or novel lab-grown ingredients (e.g., bio-based cosmetic polymers) for use by the broader beauty industry.

Companies that leverage technologies like IoT to develop smart devices (e.g., smart mirrors, wearables) that offer real-time analysis of skin health, skincare routines, and product usage for consumers. This also includes companies that offer 3D-printed makeup, at-home beauty tech (e.g., at-home manicure machines), and other tech-based personal care products (e.g., tech-enabled color-changing nails).

Companies that leverage technologies such as AI/ML to match consumers with third-party beauty products by offering personalized recommendations to consumers, which are curated based on each individual customer’s preferences.

Companies that formulate customized hair and other beauty solutions such as fragrances, leveraging technologies such as AI/ML to tailor product recommendations, which are directly sold to consumers.

Beauty tech features brands that leverage IoT for smart devices

Personalized beauty tech features brands that leverage AR tools for virtual cosmetic try-ons

Some companies (like Mink and Ellure) allow customers to print their own makeup

Beauty tech features brands that leverage robotics for at-home devices

AI/ML is used for Big Data analysis, allowing companies to improve prediction capabilities for personalization

Beauty tech features brands that leverage biotechnology to create sustainable materials

Beauty tech features brands that leverage blockchain for supply chain transparency

Companies offer personalized recommendations and products based on individual attributes like skin and hair

AIM Colours

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