The Good Face Project raises $5.65 million for platform to streamline demand on R&D
Good Face Project announced Tuesday a $5.65 million investment from VMG Capital. The company has introduced an AI-powered platform for aiding R&D in any vertical which relies on chemistry, starting with cosmetics.
CEO and co-founder of Good Face Project Iva Teixeira told CosmeticsDesign that the platform is intended to allow R&D teams and brands to address mounting consumer demands at the start of product development.
While the development process used to include creating a product and then screening it against the relevant regulations, Teixeira said today’s market moves too quickly and includes too many demands to use the same model.
Using investment to change consumer goods R&D process
With the investment, Teixeira said Good Face Project would continue to expand in the cosmetics and personal care sector, as well as other packaged consumer goods verticals.
Consumers have expectations of sustainability, packaging, affordability, efficacy, skin sensitization and many other aspects of their personal care products, which is difficult for brands to keep up with.
Teixeira said R&D broadly needs to create ways to funnel market insights to not only keep up-to-date but look towards to the consumer demands of tomorrow.
“That just screams big data and real-time data at the fingertips, not just for the marketer, but for the decision maker that is in procurement, the decision maker that is in manufacturing, the decision maker that is on the chemist's bench,” Teixeira said.
She also said this belief made VMG the right investor for The Good Face Project, both on the industry and technology sides.
Success for a new type of start-up
While the company is obviously vying for commercial success, Teixeira also said the investment and growth of The Good Face Project is also a win for a different type of start-up team.
Not only are the co-founders of the company women and mothers, which Teixeira said isn’t necessarily typical, but the team is also distributed internationally, including an engineering team based in Ukraine.
“At this point in time, it's part of our mission to succeed as a company commercially so that the livelihood of our developers (in Ukraine) can be secured,” she said.
As the company moves forward, Teixeira said she wants beauty professionals to know product team is open-minded and encourages discussions to further develop The Good Face Project, as formulators did when the software was being developed.
