L’Oréal Invests in Partech Ventures Fund

L’Oréal has made a strategic investment in the early stage fund Partech International Venture VII, which managed by Partech Ventures, an international venture capitalist firm headquartered in Paris. The investment, according to L’Oréal, complements its comprehensive strategy to connect to the world’s hottest startup scenes and the opportunity to participate in the financing of promising early stage digital businesses.
 
With its focus on tech and digital champions, Partech Ventures will help L’Oréal tap into innovations and services that can transform people’s relationship to beauty through prediction and personalization tools, artificial intelligence, marketplaces and new services, the firm said.
 
“Our unique relationship with Partech Ventures will give us access to a high quality and comprehensive sourcing of the best B2B and B2C digital players and contribute to the Group’s global strategy of Open Innovation. It will create value across the board for our brand and marketing teams and will connect us to new ideas and partners to better engage and serve our consumers,” said Lubomira Rochet, chief digital officer for L’Oréal.
 
“We are very proud to work with L’Oréal, global leader of the beauty industry, as one of our strategic partners,” said Philippe Collombel, co-managing partner of Partech Ventures, which also has offices in Berlin and San Francisco. “L’Oréalhas been amongst the first groups to understand the full potential of digital transformation, and to integrate new tech partners and tools within its offer and organization. This partnership embodies Partech Ventures’ international DNA and will enable win-win business opportunities for L’Oréal and our portfolio companies.”
 
Last year, L’Oréal’s also invested in the Founders Factory, a digital accelerator and incubator.
 
These partnerships, according to the beauty giant, will deepen and support L’Oréal’s broader digital innovation strategy which also includes L’Oréal’s Research and Innovation Technology Incubator located in San Francisco that has spearheaded a number of game changing digital services.
 
Founded in 1982 in Silicon Valley, Partech Ventures is a global investment firm. Most partners have been entrepreneurs themselves or have held management positions within tech companies. The partnership acts and invests as a single team, helping entrepreneurs build fast-growing tech and digital companies addressing large markets across multiple continents. Partech Ventures partners with entrepreneurs at the seed, venture and/or growth stages. Companies backed by Partech Ventures have completed 21 initial public offerings and more than 50 major M&A transactions with leading international companies. Since 2012, the team has built a pioneering business development platform fostering synergies and business relationships between entrepreneurs and strategic partners.