With her start-up Arcaea, MIT grad Jasmina Aganovic has been using biology to try to make the beauty products of the future more about individualism and consumers getting to know their bodies.
Arcaea raised $78 million in Series A Funding from investors including Chanel, Givaudan and Olaplex during the COVID-19 global pandemic, and has just launched its first ingredient technology, ScentARC, which is geared toward deodorant brands.
Designed to target specific underarm microbes, the patent-pending prebiotic technology shifts a user’s odor profile by selectively and naturally preventing production of odorous compounds without antimicrobials or masking smells.
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“Our mission is to make biology the most desired technology in beauty,” Aganovic said. “When it comes to the $25 billion deodorant category, the underlying science relies on approaches developed in the 1800s: masking smells, killing odor or blocking and absorbing sweat. We saw a better solution through biology using technologies that didn’t exist until recently.”
According to Arcaea, it has already garnered sampling interest for this new ingredient from hundreds of brands worldwide looking to partner on better deodorant formulation.
As well as deodorant, Arcaea is continuing to invent novel ingredients that can deliver new functionality and performance across skin care, body care, hair care and sun care. In addition to selling its ingredients into the industry, Arcaea will also be launching brands of its own.