L’Oréal partners with Hello Tomorrow international deep-tech competition

13-Mar-2019 - Last updated on 13-Mar-2019 at 11:40 GMT

The global beauty giant has, for the third consecutive year, teamed up with the Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge: a competition that aims to connect and empower the most promising scientific and technological startups.

The competition seeks out those rising companies that are devoted to ‘solve the world’s major industrial and societal challenges’, it says.

The international jury is set to announce the 2019 winners this week in Paris, at the Hello Tomorrow Global Summit on 14 and 15 March 2019.

There are 12 Challenge categories, and L’Oréal will support the “Wellbeing” finale and will present the award of 15,000 euros to the winner.

Jacques Leclaire, Scientific Director of L’Oréal, said: “We are proud to support the Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge for a third time. It brings together leading deep-tech companies and creates opportunities to innovate in an unexpected way.

“By cooperating and supporting these scientific startups, we can identify the possible applications of their technologies to our challenges and transform their projects into concrete solutions.”

Recent innovations on show

L’Oréal’s Reasearch & Innovation division is set to use the Global Summit as an opportunity to showcase some of its standout recent technologival innovations.

These include:

a low-flow showerhead developed by the Swiss start-up Gjosa, which saves over 70% water and energy. To optimise the effect of this environmentallyfriendly product, L’Oréal researchers have developed easy-to-rinse shampoos which the system supplies directly via the shower head in collaboration with the Gjosa teams. Watch it here.

Lancôme’s Le Teint Particulier Custom Made Foundation, a technology that precisely matches an individual’s unique skin tone to create customized foundation at the point of sale,
La Roche-Posay’s My Skin Track UV, a wearable sun sensor which measures UV exposure.

This collaboration with Hello Tomorrow is part of the L’Oréal’s Open Innovation strategy, which includes partnerships with Founders Factory, Partech International Ventures, Station F, Raise Ventures and its own corporate venture capital fund BOLD - Business Opportunities for L’Oréal Development.

It confirms again the global beauty giant’s strategy of leading with investment to stay at the forefront of industry innovation.