L’Oréal invests in Swiss longevity biotech company

L’Oréal has taken a minority stake in Swiss longevity biotech company Timeline through its strategic venture capital fund. 

Founded in 2007, Timeline was created to develop innovative solutions for longevity in the food, beauty and health sectors.

It has developed a proprietary molecule, called Mitopure, that recycles and rejuvenates aging mitochondria.

The investment will allow Timeline to develop its technology and expand operations, while enabling future collaboration with L’Oréal.

Barbara Lavernos, Deputy CEO and in charge of Research, Innovation and Technology at L’Oréal Group, said: "Longevity adds a new dimension to beauty, focused on predicting, correcting and even reversing the ageing of our skin, scalp and hair.

"Our investment in Timeline is exciting for its potential to transpose key hallmarks of longevity onto skin health and beauty."

The move was led by L’Oréal’s corporate venture capital fund, BOLD (Business Opportunities for L’Oréal Development).

Since its creation in 2018, BOLD has explored the frontier of beauty via strategic minority investments in promising startups across the beauty value chain.

Its investment portfolio includes emerging brands as well as innovative companies in the domains of technology and biotechnology.

L’Oréal has been increasing its investments into technology and biotech companies in recent months.

Last year, the group acquired probiotic and microbiome research firm Lactobio. It also purchased the outstanding shares of environmental tech start-up Gjosa earlier this month.