Microphyt develops and markets unique microalgae-based bioactives and ingredients for cosmetics and nutrition products. Photo: Courtesy Microphyt
Microphyt, a French company developing microalgae-based natural solutions for nutrition and well-being, has announced a successful Series B fundraise of €15 million. This investment was led by cosmetics giant L’Oréal through its venture capital fund BOLD Business Opportunities for L’Oréal Development.
The funds will be used to accelerate both their new products development and the commercialization of their product portfolio and industrial platform. Microphyt will also work with L’Oréal to develop sustainable ingredients for their beauty products.
The investment was additionally supported by Microphyt’s current investors Bpifrance “Sociétés de Projets Industriels” fund (“SPI fund”), Sofinnova Partners, IXO-Private Equity, Supernova Partners, IRDI and Sofilaro.
Microphyt was founded in 2007 and is based in the city of Baillargues, in the Hérault region of Southern France. The company has an integrated platform that transforms microalgae into renewable ingredients that are aligned with their product development plans as well as L’Oréal’s sustainable ambitions. L’Oréal’s objective is for 95% of the ingredients they use to be bio-sourced and derived from abundant minerals or from circular processes by 2030.
Over the past 18 months, Microphyt launched five new proprietary algae-based ingredients. In Advanced Beauty, cosmetic active ingredients including their Renouvellance™, Luteana™ and Phycosi™ are increasingly being used by cosmetic brands worldwide. (This last sentence does not tell me what the ingredients are, it just tells me the name. Can we delete this paragraph and the next one? They’re so hard to read.)
In Novel Nutrition, Microphyt recently launched the only clinically validated natural ingredient specifically designed for e-gamers in the dietary supplement market in the US: Gamephyt™, as well as Brainphyt™, a new ingredient designed to improve the well-being of the elderly. This tells me very little about algae. It only talks about the product’s consumer market. Delete.
The Microphyt/L’Oréal co-venture comes after several strategic scientific partnerships were recently forged by L’Oréal to strengthen its Green Sciences ecosystem of Beauty. “Our ambition is to collaborate across the world with the most disruptive scientific entities in Green Sciences, in order to collectively develop responsible innovations on a large scale and make them available to as many people as possible,” said Barbara Lavernos, Deputy CEO at the L’Oréal Group.
For Microphyt, this partnership with L’Oréal reinforces its strategic roadmap, according to company management. Since the accomplishment in 2019 of one of the largest fundraisings in its sector, Microphyt accelerated the development and the marketing of natural ingredients from microalgae for nutrition and cosmetics.
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