L’Oréal announces a minority investment in Swiss environmental tech startup Gjosa, made through its corporate venture capital fund BOLD Business Opportunities for L’Oréal Development.
Based in Bienne, Switzerland, Gjosa develops unique water-saving solutions. L’Oréal and Gjosa have been working together since 2015 to optimize shampoo rinse technologies with the objective to save water. In 2018, L’Oréal and Gjosa have announced the development of a shower head able to rinse shampoo with 1.5 litre of water (instead of 8 usually used). At CES in January 2021, L’Oréal and Gjosa have presented the L’Oréal Water Saver, a sustainable haircare system for the salon and at-home beauty routine.
“At L’Oréal we aim to offer the best sustainable beauty science and to be the champion of “Beauty Tech”. By combining Gjosa’s unique water-tech innovations with L’Oréal’s knowledge of beauty rituals, data, tech, and personalization, we will invent together new augmented beauty experiences for our consumers while protecting the coveted and precious resource that is water”, said Barbara Lavernos, Chief Research, Innovation & Technology Officer, L’Oréal Group.
“We are thrilled to enter this new stage of partnership with L’Oréal. Their leadership in beauty R&D, “Beauty Tech”, and their iconic brands, will enhance our roadmap in water-technologies to reach consumers all around the world”, said Amin Abdulla and Luc Amgwerd, co-founders of Gjosa. “This strengthening of our partnership will enable us to create innovations that will have the best water-tech solutions for people in salons and at-home with the highest quality, and we are elated to work together to reach this goal”.