L’Oreal Buys ModiFace As It Picks Up Pace Of Digital Expansion

L’Oreal, the beauty company, is gearing up to buy ModiFace, the Canadian tech company that makes beauty products for the digital world.

In a press release, L’Oreal said it is acquiring 100 percent of ModiFace, which it said is a leader in augmented reality and artificial intelligence for the beauty industry. The acquisition is part of L’Oreal’s plan to accelerate its digital strategy and to provide its 34 international brands with innovative technologies that enhance the beauty experience. ModiFace has created advanced technologies including 3D virtual makeup, color and skin diagnosis services using facial recognition technology that is proprietary. Its technology is used by almost all of the major beauty brands, L’Oreal said in the press release.  ModiFace has close to 70 engineers, researchers and scientists who have submitted more than 200 scientific publications and registered over thirty patents, the makeup company noted. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“We are thrilled to welcome ModiFace to L’Oréal to become the heart of our digital services R&D. With its world-class team, technologies and sustained track record in terms of beauty tech innovations, ModiFace will support the reinvention of the beauty experience around innovative services to help our customers discover, try and chose products and brands,” said Lubomira Rochet, chief digital officer at L’Oreal, in the press release. “We at L’Oréal and ModiFace want to pioneer this new page of the beauty industry and serve our customers with innovative services and experiences.” ModiFace will be placed in L’Oreal’s Digital Service Factory, a unit that is focused on designing and developing new digital services for its brands. ModiFace will work with the Advanced Research unit but will remain in Toronto, close to the university in which it has research partnerships.

“L’Oréal’s acquisition of ModiFace provides an incredible opportunity to innovate on beauty augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) at an unprecedented scale, the results of which will shape the beauty industry for the decades to come. Our entire team and I are extremely excited to be joining the L’Oréal family, and look forward to the AR/AI-enabled future that we will create together,” said Parham Aarabi, founder and CEO of ModiFace in the same press release.