Traditional beauty try-ons involved physical makeup testers available at retail stores. Due to the finite availability of tester products, these testers posed hygiene concerns and limited consumer experimentation.
The surge in online shopping also increased the need for virtual solutions to replicate the in-store experience and help customers make informed purchasing decisions from the comfort of their homes.
Existing digital solutions include static filters and simple upload-and-try features on websites that often provide unrealistic and inaccurate representations. These methods fail to deliver a personalized and engaging experience and do not account for individual facial features, skin tones, or lighting conditions.
New solutions like Augmented Reality (AR) beauty try-ons provide a highly interactive and accurate method for customers to visualize makeup using real-time video technology.
AR mirrors the nuances of individual faces, adjusts to different lighting conditions, and offers a more true-to-life representation of how products will look. By allowing consumers to try on beauty products virtually, AR technology enhances the shopping experience and consumer satisfaction and reduces product returns.
This article explores four early-stage innovative startups reshaping the cosmetic shopping experience with AR beauty try-on technologies.
These startups have the potential to grow rapidly, are in a good market position, or can introduce game-changing technology to the market in the next 2-3 years.
This makes them a great option to partner, collaborate, or acquire.
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1. Khloé Changing Nail Paint and Styling With 3D Printer and ML Technologies
| Founding Year | 2023 |
| Headquarters | Wilmington, Delaware, US |
| Total Funding Amount | $536K |
| Last Funding Round/Amount | Seed Round/$500K |
| Website | https://www.khloe.app/ |
The nail salon industry faces challenges such as inventory management, time-consuming manual processes, and limited customization options for clients. These problems often result in higher operational costs, reduced customer satisfaction, and constrained creative expression.
To tackle these issues, Khloé has developed a comprehensive technology suite that includes a mobile application for virtual nail design try-ons and a proprietary 3D printer for salons.
The mobile app allows customers to customize and preview nail designs, book appointments, and bring virtual creations to life in salons.
Khloé’s 3D printer is designed to mold acrylic or gel nails and mix lacquers to produce a wide range of colors. It enables the printing of customer-specific designs directly onto nails. This system can produce over four million color combinations and requires a minimum production volume of 0.1mL.
This technology enhances customer and salon experiences. It reduces the need for physical inventory, saves time for customers and technicians, and attracts new customers seeking personalized nail designs.
The startup’s innovation can be integrated with various software services, such as accounting, booking, loyalty programs, and CRM, and streamlines salon management.
Founder Shawn Doan has led this Khloé with his experience as a co-founder of other startups. He has also been a managing partner and key account manager for previous startups.
Doan worked as a Marketing Consultant and helped Thinklean Limited with brand development, visual designs, and brand guidelines.
Khloé’s latest seed funding, $500k, was on August 30, 2023. Alphabet and MongoDB are among the investors in this startup.
2. Be Beleza Tech Changing Personalized Beauty Experience with AI and AR
| Founding Year | 2020 |
| Headquarters | Sao Paulo, Brazil |
| Total Funding Amount | R$1 Million |
| Last Funding Round/Amount | Pre-seed/R$1 Million |
| Website | https://www.bebelezatech.com.br/ |
The beauty industry needs a more interactive and personalized beauty shopping experience that enhances consumer engagement. Traditional e-commerce platforms often lack the capability to provide customers with a realistic and immersive way to test and explore products before purchase. This leads to hesitation and lower conversion rates.
To overcome these challenges, Be Beleza Tech has developed technologies and platforms, including Virtual Try-On, Digital Mirror, Vitrine Virtual, and a comprehensive beauty app.
These solutions leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) to offer interactive and personalized beauty experiences. The Virtual Try-On technology allows consumers to digitally test products within an integrated shopping cart, while the Digital Mirror utilizes AR for engaging beauty tutorials.
Be Beleza Tech Vitrine Virtual creates an interactive showcase powered by AI, enhancing e-commerce traffic and sales. This startup also provides data-driven marketing and product development insights through Big Data and Machine Learning analysis.
Be Beleza Tech reports a 73% better Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) and an 82% better Cost Per Click (CPC) than the Brazilian average. Its technology has also helped achieve a 30% growth in average ticket sales and a 51% higher Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS).
Co-founder and CEO Carolina Habeyche is leading this startup with her extensive industry experience. She was among the founding members and creative director at Cacá Makeup, the first make-up school in Brazil. She developed a method of teaching makeup to artists, trained sales teams, and provided services and consulting to the industry for 14+ years.
Habeyche also provided consultancy for Product Development. She supported pharmacies and Brazil’s cosmetic market with new product development, testing, quality control, packaging solutions, new campaigns, themes, market analysis, research, and more.
Be Beleza raised R$1 million from its latest pre-seed funding round, which was led by BR Angels on March 10, 2022.
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3. Obsess AR’s AVA Providing Try-On for the Beauty Industry with 3D and AR Technologies
| Founding Year | 2017 |
| Headquarters | New York, US |
| Total Funding Amount | $13.9 Million |
| Last Funding Round/Amount | Non-equity Assistance/$500K |
| Website | https://obsessar.com/ |
Online shopping has a stagnant nature, where the experience has largely remained unchanged for decades. It is often limited to scrolling through static grids of product thumbnails.
This traditional approach lacks engagement and interactivity. It fails to capture the dynamic and immersive experiences that modern consumers, like Gen Z and gamers, expect.
Obesses AR developed a proprietary platform that harnesses augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and 3D technologies. This platform, AVA by Obsess, is a self-service solution allowing brands to create and customize 3D virtual stores.
This platform’s proprietary 3D editing and rendering technology features enable the integration of product data, immersive content, and interactive elements within virtual environments. This will make online shopping more engaging, interactive, and reflective of a brand’s unique identity.
Unlike traditional e-commerce platforms, Obsess’s solution enables a fully 3D, navigable environment where customers can explore and interact with products in a virtual space.
Founder and CEO Neha Singh has led this startup since its inception. She previously headed Vogue’s product line and was a senior software engineer for Google.
Neha also has experience working as VP of Product & Engineering for e-commerce startup AHAlife. Her educational background includes an M.S. in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Obsess’s latest funding round was on Jul 13, 2022, from which it raised $500K as Non-equity Assistance. Disney Accelerator led this round, and three other investors participated.
Related Read: 7 Cosmetic Startups Researching Innovation Trends
4. Perfect365 Makeup Photo Tools and AI Avatars Help Users Try Makeup and Hairstyles Virtually
| Founding Year | 2011 |
| Headquarters | Zhejiang, China |
| Total Funding Amount | CN¥3 Million |
| Last Funding Round/Amount | Angel Investment/CN¥3 Million |
| Website | https://www.perfect365.com/ |
Selecting makeup and hairstyles without physically trying them on is a challenge in the online cosmetics and beauty industry. This difficulty stems from the limitations of traditional beauty shopping and style experimentation, which often require purchasing products before trying them, leading to potential dissatisfaction and waste.
To solve these problems, Perfect365 developed a suite of digital beauty tools leveraging Augmented Reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI). These tools include the Perfect365 Makeup Photo Editor, Perfect365 Video Makeup Editor, Perfect365 Studio Photo Editor, and Perfect365 SoReal AI Avatar.
These applications employ computer vision, facial recognition, AI, and image manipulation technologies to allow users to try makeup and hairstyles virtually. The technology accurately detects facial features and applies virtual makeup in real-time, offering over 200 one-tap makeup looks and more than 20 customizable makeup tools.
Advanced face detection and realistic virtual makeup applications offer high accuracy and customization.
Sean Mao is the president and CEO of this startup. He has also been an Official Forbes Business Development Council member for the past seven years.
Mao spent his 17 years (2000-2017) with Arcsoft in various roles, including software engineer, Manager, Director, and Vice President.
In an Angel investment round on Jun 27, 2016, Pefect365 raised a total of CN¥3 Million.
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Authored By: Naveen Kumar, Market Research
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