50 Beauty Tech Start-Ups To Have On Your Radar In 2026

Beauty tech start-ups have had a very big year. Since we published the first version of this list in early 2025, the money has moved from novelty (a mirror that tells you your skin is dehydrated, thanks) to the serious stuff: robots that do your nails at Ulta, AI that designs new perfume molecules, biotech that grows collagen without a single cow, and an epigenetic test that can tell you your real skin age. Some of last year’s names have grown up. Others have vanished. And a whole new crop has arrived with cheques from L’Oréal, Estée Lauder, Unilever and, as of this month, Andreessen Horowitz.

So we started again. Below are the 50 beauty tech start-ups to have on your radar in 2026, grouped by what they actually do, with the funding round, launch or award that earned each one its place.

How we picked: privately held, founded roughly 2015 or later (with a couple of scale-up exceptions we couldn’t leave out), and something new to show for the past 12 months. Corporates in start-up clothing didn’t make the cut, which is why you won’t find L’Oréal, Amorepacific or Perfect Corp below.

Jump To A Category

• AI Skin Analysis & Diagnostics (1–7)
• AI Makeup, Shade-Matching & Retail Tech (8–13)
• Beauty Devices & Robots (14–20)
• Longevity, Biotech & Life-Stage Skincare (21–28)
• Skin & Scalp Microbiome (29–32)
• Personalised Beauty & Creator Commerce (33–36)
• Fragrance Tech & AI Scent (37–41)
• Sustainable Beauty & Packaging Tech (42–45)
• Hair Tech (46–50)
• Beauty Tech Start-Ups: Your Questions Answered

AI Skin Analysis & Diagnostics

The category that started the whole beauty tech conversation is now less about “scan your face” and more about what the scan feeds: shopping agents, dermatology-grade apps and body analysis.

1. Haut.AI – The AI That Now Shops For Your Skin

Founded in Tallinn and now pressing releases out of New York, Haut.AI powers the skin-analysis tools behind Ulta Beauty, Beiersdorf and Neutrogena. The big shift in the past year: it went direct to consumer. Skin.Chat, its AI shopping agent, launched on Amazon, WhatsApp and Instagram in November 2025, and in July 2026 the company added full-body AI analysis. Translation: the tech that used to live on a brand’s website now lives in your DMs.

Why we care: If AI is going to recommend your serum, we’d rather it analysed 150-plus skin biomarkers per scan than a TikTok trend.

2. Revieve – Skin Diagnostics, Now Inside ChatGPT

Helsinki-and-Chicago-based Revieve builds the AI skin analysis and virtual try-on tech that retailers plug into their own apps. In 2025 it picked up the Global Tech Award for beauty technology. In March 2026 it launched a white-label AI Skin Advisor for ChatGPT, so brands can meet you inside the chatbot you already use rather than hoping you’ll download theirs, and in May 2026 it signed the Nordics’ Matas Group (Matas and KICKS).

Why we care: Beauty discovery is moving into chat windows. Revieve got there before most of the brands did.

3. Renude – The British Skin AI Brands Are Buying

Founded in 2020 by Pippa Harman and Cate Nisson, UK-based Renude builds conversational skin consultations for brands and retailers. Its SkinChat AI for Rodial, launched in July 2025 and built with dermatologist Dr Justine Kluk, is trained on more than four million data points. In January 2026 it took AI Technology Supplier of the Year (UK & Ireland) at the inaugural RTIH AI in Retail Awards, and in April it launched its SkinChat AI with The Future Laboratory.

Why we care: Proof that a British start-up can win the AI skin-consult race against much bigger, better-funded rivals.

4. Skinive – The Mole-Checker That Went Mainstream

Dutch digital-health start-up Skinive makes a CE-marked AI skin scanner: photograph a mole, a rash or a breakout and get a risk assessment in seconds. It has processed more than six million images and passed a million downloads (company figures). In July 2026 it expanded into UV-exposure and vitamin-D tracking, and pointed its dermatology API at telemedicine providers and insurers.

Why we care: Skin health and skincare are finally being treated as the same conversation. This app is where they meet.

5. EveLab Insight – Wrinkle Detection That Watches You Move

Singapore’s EveLab Insight has built a skin-analysis foundation model that reads 40-plus dimensions of your face, and it counts Shiseido, Dr Barbara Sturm and Sulwhasoo among its clients. Its VivaTech 2025 debut was dynamic wrinkle detection, which analyses video rather than a still, so it catches the lines that only appear when you laugh. The tech is now live in more than 4,500 retail doors.

Why we care: Static selfies flatter. Video doesn’t. That is exactly why brands want it.

6. Becon – Samsung’s Spin-Off For Skin And Scalp

Born in Samsung’s C-Lab incubator in 2020, Becon makes AI skin and scalp scanners for salons, clinics and brands, and its client list runs from Olive Young to Wella, L’Oréal and Unilever. By its own account it raised a Series A in 2025 and passed 5,000 B2B locations, and in April 2026 it opened a US office in Irvine, California alongside a partnership with Olive Young’s American arm.

Why we care: Korea’s beauty tech is coming west, and scalp analysis is about to be as normal as a skin consult.

7. Skin Rocks – Caroline Hirons’ App Grows Up

Launched in 2022 by the skincare industry’s favourite straight-talker, Skin Rocks is part advice app, part product brand, and since January 2025 also a professional-only range and training programme (Skin Rocks Pro) for facialists. In April 2025 it took its first growth investment, a Series A from Redrice Ventures and JamJar, to fund international expansion.

Why we care: A creator-led beauty business raising proper venture money for tech, not just SKUs, is rarer than it should be.

AI Makeup, Shade-Matching & Retail Tech

Foundation matching is this year’s arms race. Shade finders that once needed a counter and a good light now need a phone, a spectrometer, or a countertop machine that mixes it for you.

8. BoldHue – The Foundation Machine That Sold Out

Still the coolest object on this list. BoldHue’s $295 countertop device scans your skin and dispenses a custom-matched foundation from pigment cartridges, and it sold out within two months of launch. In 2025 it was named a Fast Company Innovation by Design honouree and made TIME’s Best Inventions list, followed by a NewBeauty Award in 2026 for best customised makeup device. Backers include Mark Cuban, with around $7 million raised to date.

Why we care: Shade-matching was beauty’s oldest unsolved problem. This is the first fix that doesn’t involve 40 sample pots.

9. IlluminateAI – The Science Behind Clarins’ Shade Finder

This Silicon Valley start-up measures your skin tone and undertone with spectroscopy through a smartphone rather than a photo, which is why it is suddenly everywhere. It powers the Clarins AI Shade Finder, launched in February 2026 across 100-plus counters in seven countries including the UK, and Clarins claims a 96 per cent match rate against a professional makeup artist.

Why we care: When a heritage French house trusts a start-up with its foundation counter, the category has changed.

10. Inference Beauty – Ingredient Matching For The INCI-Obsessed

Formerly Skin Match Technology, this Zurich company rebranded in August 2025, and says its ingredient-transparency tools now account for 31 per cent of its revenue. Its AI reads a product’s formula and matches it to your skin, hair and even fragrance preferences, and it sits behind sites for Kiehl’s, REN, IT Cosmetics and Nudestix.

Why we care: We all read the ingredients list now. This is the tech that reads it for you.

11. FFFACE.ME – The AR Mirror That Stole VivaTech

Ukrainian-founded and now headquartered in London, this AR studio has turned its beauty filters into loook.ai, a plug-and-play smart mirror for shops. It ran on L’Oréal’s booth at VivaTech Paris 2025 with demos for Kiehl’s, Dolce & Gabbana Beauty and Thelios, counts YSL, Burberry and Victoria’s Secret as clients, and reports a 20 per cent footfall lift at Kiehl’s Nolita store in New York.

Why we care: A Ukrainian start-up building for Europe’s biggest beauty group, through a war, is a story worth telling on its own.

12. SWAN Beauty – The $795 Mirror That Judges Your Skin (Nicely)

Launched in early 2026 and backed by the Mitchell Family Office, SWAN’s smart mirror uses a 4K camera to analyse seven skin concerns, guide your makeup application and let you shop the results. It is expensive, it is American, and it is the first AI mirror that looks like it belongs on a dressing table rather than in a Sephora.

Why we care: The at-home smart mirror has been “coming” since 2018. This is the first one we’d actually put in our bedroom.

13. Sorra – Community Reviews, Verified

Hong Kong’s Sorra is a beauty review platform where only verified, registered members can rate products, which makes its data unusually clean. Its 2025 Sorra Beauty Awards, run with Sa Sa, the city’s largest beauty retailer, combined community ratings with real sales data for the first time.

Why we care: Fake reviews are ruining beauty shopping. Verified ones are the fix, and Asia is ahead.

Beauty Devices & Robots

This is where 2026 got weird in the best way. Robots now do manicures at Ulta, lash extensions at Nordstrom and (soon) braids at your salon.

14. LYMA – The British Laser That Cracked America

Lucy Goff’s near-infrared laser device has gone from British cult buy to serious business: LYMA reported $48 million in revenue for 2025, with the US now more than 70 per cent of sales. The LYMA Laser PRO (roughly $6,000) launched stateside in April 2025 off a 16,000-person waitlist.

Why we care: British beauty tech at scale, profitable, and still founder-run. Take notes.

15. YUV – Hair Colour, Mixed By Machine

Founded in London by Francisco Gimenez, YUV’s Lab is a countertop machine plus app and refillable cartridges that lets salons and freelance colourists mix bespoke formulas on demand. It closed a $12 million Series A led by Nineyards Equity in December 2025, with a US launch planned for 2026.

Why we care: Your colourist’s “secret formula” is about to be saved in the cloud. Finally.

16. iPolish – Nails That Change Colour From Your Phone

The single most talked-about beauty launch at CES 2026: e-ink press-on nails that switch between hundreds of shades via an app. The Florida start-up’s $95 starter kit is on pre-order, with shipping now slated for the end of December 2026 (it was originally promised for June). Yes, it is a gimmick. Yes, we want one.

Why we care: It answers the question “what if my nails matched my outfit every day?” without a single salon visit.

17. 10Beauty – The Manicure Robot Taking Over Ulta

Boston-area 10Beauty makes a five-step robotic manicure machine (a licensed manicurist stays on hand), and it swallowed rival Clockwork in February 2025. Ulta Beauty began rolling the machines out in November 2025, the company says it has commitments for roughly 850 machines across its first retail partners, and in mid-2026 it announced a $23.5 million round led by Story Ventures, taking its total to roughly $70 million.

Why we care: The robot manicure went from viral clip to real retail strategy in under a year.

18. LUUM – Lash Extensions By Robot

Oakland’s LUUM has 73 patents on an AI lash-extension system, and its next-generation dual-eye robot, launched in November 2025, does a full set in 33 minutes. It has been rolling into Nordstrom in San Jose, Irvine and New York and into Ulta stores in Texas through early 2026.

Why we care: Two hours on a lash bed versus 33 minutes. That is the whole pitch, and it works.

19. Blank Beauty – Custom Nail Polish In 40,000 Shades

Knoxville, Tennessee’s Blank Beauty has an in-store robot, Huey, that mixes a bespoke polish from 40,000 shades while you wait. In May 2025 it closed an oversubscribed Series A of around $6.5 million led by Evolution VC Partners, with Epson and nail-polish maker Kirker Enterprises as strategic investors, and it is piloting in Walmart stores in Arkansas and Tennessee.

Why we care: Colour-matching your polish to a swatch of your dress is now a Walmart thing. Beauty tech has left the luxury bubble.

20. HaloBraid – The Braiding Robot Backed By Alexis Ohanian

Founded by Yinka Ogunbiyi, HaloBraid is building a robotic braiding assistant that the company says finishes each braid up to five times faster. It raised a $7 million seed led by Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six in June 2026, with its first product due late this year.

Why we care: Eight-hour braiding appointments are a tax on textured hair. This is the first serious attempt to cut them.

Longevity, Biotech & Life-Stage Skincare

Longevity ate skincare in 2025. Senescent cells, epigenetic clocks, lab-grown collagen: the lab has moved onto the shelf, and the money has followed.

21. OneSkin – The Peptide That Targets Ageing Cells

Founded in San Francisco by four Brazilian scientists, OneSkin is built on OS-01, a proprietary peptide designed to reduce the senescent “zombie” cells that accumulate in ageing skin. Unilever Ventures backed it in 2024, and in August 2025 it announced a $20 million investment from Prelude Growth Partners.

Why we care: “Skin longevity” is the phrase of the year, and OneSkin coined the category before it was cool.

22. Debut – L’Oréal-Backed AI Ingredient Discovery

San Diego’s Debut uses AI to discover and formulate new ingredients targeting the “14 hallmarks of ageing”, and it made the TIME100 Most Influential Companies list in 2025. That August it raised $20 million, with L’Oréal’s BOLD venture fund among the backers, to expand into Asia via Singapore.

Why we care: When L’Oréal pays for your R&D, the ingredients in your future moisturiser are being decided right now.

23. Geltor – Collagen Without The Cow

Geltor grows animal-free collagen and elastin peptides through precision fermentation in San Leandro, California, and sells them to beauty brands under names like Collume and Elastapure. An August 2025 round co-led by Starlight Ventures and iSelect took total funding to $137 million.

Why we care: Vegan collagen that is actually collagen, not a “collagen-boosting” euphemism.

24. Cambrium – Berlin’s Micro-Molecular Collagen

Cambrium designs proteins from scratch, and its NovaColl is a skin-identical vegan collagen small enough to actually penetrate, distributed in the UK, Ireland, Iberia, France and Italy by Brenntag Specialties. In April 2025 it launched NovaColl HC, a haircare version the company claims is 10 times more effective on damaged hair.

Why we care: The collagen in your conditioner has historically been too big to do anything. This one isn’t.

25. ExoLab Italia – Plant Exosomes, Done Properly

Exosomes are the buzziest word in aesthetics, and ExoLab Italia, from L’Aquila, is one of the few companies with a plant-derived version that stands up to scrutiny. It raised a €5 million Series A in February 2025 from dsm-firmenich Ventures, CDP Venture Capital and others to build a new 1,000-square-metre lab.

Why we care: Every clinic is selling exosome facials. Very few can tell you where the exosomes came from.

26. Mitra Bio – The Skin-Age Test You Can Do With Tape

London’s Mitra Bio measures your skin’s biological age from a non-invasive tape strip using DNA methylation, the same science behind epigenetic clocks, and its tech has run in 30-plus clinical trials for brands. An at-home consumer test is planned for late 2026, starting in the US.

Why we care: “Your skin is 38” is about to be a number you can actually check, not a compliment from a facialist.

27. Dieux – Clinical Skincare With A Price Tag You Can See

New York’s Dieux publishes what its products cost to make, which is still radical. Now in 700-plus Sephora stores and led since October 2024 by former Tatcha president Ryan Scott, in October 2025 it announced dedicated Dieux skincare studios in New York and Los Angeles for 2026.

Why we care: Transparency as a business model, with a retail footprint to prove it works.

28. Stripes Beauty – Naomi Watts Takes Menopause To Ulta

Founded in 2022 and acquired by L Catterton in partnership with Watts in 2024, Stripes makes science-led skin, scalp, body and intimate care for perimenopause and beyond. From July 2026 it expanded from four to 448 Ulta Beauty stores, and it has launched menopause spa treatments with Canyon Ranch.

Why we care: Menopause beauty is finally getting shelf space, not just a “for mature skin” sticker. (Read our piece on Oura’s menopause score for the wearable side of the story.)

Skin & Scalp Microbiome

The microbiome moved from “trend” to “insurance-covered” this year. That is not a sentence we expected to write.

29. Parallel Health – Microbiome Dermatology, Now In-Network

San Francisco’s Parallel sequences the whole genome of your skin microbiome and prescribes custom phage serums to rebalance it. In March 2026 it added metabolic microbiome profiling for precision ageing care, and in June 2026 it joined Blue Shield of California’s network, making it in-network with four insurers covering 28 million people in California.

Why we care: A skincare start-up that health insurers will pay for. The line between dermatology and beauty just moved.

30. Sequential – Cambridge’s Microbiome Testing Lab

Sequential tests how ingredients and formulas affect the skin microbiome for brands, with 50,000-plus samples and 4,000-plus ingredients in its database, and labs in Cambridge, New York and Singapore. In March 2026 it raised $3.5 million led by Sparkfood and Corundum Systems Biology to build an AI ingredient-discovery platform.

Why we care: “Microbiome-friendly” on a label is meaningless unless someone tested it. Increasingly, that someone is Sequential.

31. Symbiome – Amazonian Ferments, Spa-Led Growth

Founded by physician Larry Weiss, New York’s Symbiome uses fermented Amazonian botanicals to support the skin’s microbiome. Named to BeautyMatter’s NEXT50 in June 2026, it is growing through spas and approaching 200 physical doors, including Printemps, plus Nordstrom online.

Why we care: Growing through facialists rather than influencers is a slow, old-fashioned strategy, and it is working.

32. Straand – Scalp Care, From Melbourne To Boots

Launched in 2022 as Australia’s first microbiome-focused scalp brand and backed by Unilever Ventures, Straand is now in roughly 250 Boots stores in the UK, around 100 Sephora doors worldwide, and, as of July 2026, 500 Priceline pharmacies at home.

Why we care: Skinification of the scalp is real, and this is the brand that took it from Instagram to the high street.

Personalised Beauty & Creator Commerce

Made-to-order formulas, print-on-demand brands and a marketplace for the industry’s unsold stock. This is the business-of-beauty section, and it has the biggest cheque on the list.

33. Prose – Custom Hair And Skin At $165 Million Scale

Brooklyn’s Prose makes every bottle to order using its “Singular” AI platform, and it is now a proper scale-up: 2024 revenue hit $165 million, up 29 per cent, and in June 2025 it opened a 43,000-square-foot, $9 million customisation hub in California to serve the West Coast.

Why we care: Personalised beauty was supposed to be unscalable. Prose is the counter-argument.

34. Blanka – The Print-On-Demand Of Beauty

Vancouver’s Blanka lets creators launch a private-label beauty line with zero minimum orders, plugging into Shopify, WooCommerce, TikTok Shop and Wix. If your favourite influencer suddenly has a lip-oil range, there is a decent chance this is how.

Why we care: The barrier to starting a beauty brand is now a logo and an audience. Whether that is a good thing is another article.

35. Paiire – LinkedIn For Hair And Makeup Artists

The newest company on this list, incorporated in London in January 2026 by former TV hair and makeup artist Alisia Ristevski. Paiire is a professional network and booking app for HMUAs, with an “Ask Paiire” AI search to match artists to jobs. It is live on the App Store and angel-funded so far.

Why we care: The people behind every campaign you love have never had their own platform. Now they do. READ MORE → our interview with the founder.

36. Highstock – a16z’s $30 Million Bet On Beauty’s Surplus

Founded by Instacart alumna Camille van Horne, Highstock is an AI-powered B2B marketplace that discreetly moves brands’ excess inventory to vetted wholesale buyers instead of landfill (the company says it has diverted more than 10 million pounds of product). Andreessen Horowitz led its $30 million Series A in September 2026.

Why we care: Every brand has a warehouse of last season’s stock. The start-up that solves that is solving beauty’s dirtiest secret.

Fragrance Tech & AI Scent

AI can now design molecules that have never been smelled before. Perfume is the most technical category on this list and it doesn’t get nearly enough credit.

37. Osmo – The $130 Million Nose

Alex Wiltschko’s New York company gives computers a sense of smell, designing new fragrance molecules with machine learning and, since 2025, running its own fragrance house, Generation by Osmo. In February 2026 it closed a $70 million Series B led by Two Sigma Ventures, taking total funding to $130 million, the biggest fragrance-tech deal of the year.

Why we care: Your next signature scent may contain a molecule no human has ever smelled before. That is either thrilling or unsettling, and we can’t decide.

38. Patina – The Fragrance Model Built On Your Nose

Founded in Brooklyn in 2025 by artist-perfumer Sean Raspet and engineer Laura Sisson, Patina designs novel scent molecules with Sense1, a foundation model that mimics how olfactory receptors respond. It raised $2 million from Betaworks and True Ventures in May 2026.

Why we care: Osmo now has a challenger, and it was co-founded by the former Soylent flavourist. Watch this one.

39. EveryHuman – Algorithmic Perfumery

The Dutch start-up’s conversational AI turns your answers to a few very personal questions into a scent profile, which a robotic perfume machine then blends on the spot. It was one of the fragrance innovations on show at VivaTech 2026, and it has a London outpost inside The Fragrance Shop on Oxford Street.

Why we care: It is the closest thing to a bespoke perfumer that costs less than a flight to Grasse.

40. iRomaScents – The Touch-Free Fragrance Sampler

iRomaScents’ Wizard is a retail counter device that recommends fragrances by AI and lets you sample them without spraying a single tester, and it is live in Brazil, the UAE and Japan. It won Technology and Digital Innovation at the Cosmetics Business Innovation Awards in June 2026 and is now entering the US.

Why we care: Department-store perfume halls are a headache-inducing free-for-all. This is the polite alternative.

41. Exuud – Estée Lauder’s Aerosol-Free Bet

Atlanta’s Exuud makes Soliqaire, a plant-derived biodegradable polymer that releases fragrance without heat or aerosols, programmable for intensity and duration. Estée Lauder Companies signed an exclusive commercial agreement in January 2025 after an earlier investment through its New Incubation Ventures arm, with products promised by the end of 2025. We are still waiting to see them on shelf.

Why we care: If it lands, it changes how fragrance is delivered. If it doesn’t, it is a cautionary tale about corporate timelines.

Sustainable Beauty & Packaging Tech

Refills went from Dragons’ Den pitch to Grocer award. And the real innovation is now in the materials, not the marketing.

42. Fussy – The Refillable Deodorant That Won The Grocer

The Dragons’ Den alumnus is now in Tesco, Boots and Sainsbury’s, launched a refillable body wash in October 2025 and took Health & Beauty Brand of the Year at The Grocer Gold Awards 2026 with 116 per cent growth. Refill culture, it turns out, scales.

Why we care: Proof that the “sustainable” brand can also be the fastest-growing one on the supermarket shelf.

43. Shellworks – The Compostable Jar Wild Uses

London’s Shellworks ferments microbes into Vivomer, a compostable biopolymer that looks and feels like premium plastic, and it already makes packaging for Unilever-owned Wild and Hair by Sam McKnight. In March 2026 it raised a $15 million Series A led by Alter Equity, with Nat Friedman, JamJar and LocalGlobe on the cap table.

Why we care: Your deodorant case turning into compost, rather than into a “recyclable” that never gets recycled, is the actual endgame.

44. Sparxell – Glitter That Doesn’t Wreck The Ocean

A University of Cambridge spin-out, Sparxell makes structural-colour pigments and plastic-free glitter from plant cellulose, mimicking the way a butterfly wing gets its shimmer. It raised €4.2 million in February 2026 from SWEN Capital Partners, Alpha Star Capital and Cambridge Enterprise.

Why we care: Festival season without microplastics. Also, it is very, very pretty.

45. Selkie – Powder-To-Liquid Haircare

Founded by Cicely Coops, Selkie is the UK’s only powder-to-liquid haircare brand: a tube of concentrated powder, a reusable bottle, add water. It was selected for the Breakout Beauty UK 2026 accelerator cohort in July, alongside 10 other British brands.

Why we care: Shipping water around the world is absurd when you think about it. Selkie thought about it.

Hair Tech

Hair is having its skincare moment, from lab-grown extension fibres to KAIST-developed polyphenols and a scalp serum Sephora backed before it had even launched.

46. Ruka – Biotech Extensions For Textured Hair

Launched in 2021 by Tendai Moyo and Ugo Agbai, Ruka’s Synths 2 fibre is made from collagen protein rather than plastic, and its patent-pending Synths 3 “shape memory” fibre is due in early 2027. Henkel Ventures and Freedom Trail Capital co-led a $4.5 million round in May 2026, taking lifetime funding to $10 million.

Why we care: Plastic braiding hair is an itchy, unsustainable default. A British Black-founded start-up is replacing it with science.

47. Myavana – HairAI For Textured Hair

Atlanta’s Myavana, founded by Candace Mitchell, analyses hair strands under a microscope and uses its HairAI algorithms to personalise recommendations for textured hair; the same tech powers Ulta Beauty’s virtual hair analysis tool, and Amazon is among its partners. Backed by Ulta’s Prisma Ventures, it made BeautyMatter’s Future50 and Ad Age’s Tech Power List in 2025.

Why we care: Textured hair has been an afterthought in beauty data for decades. Myavana is building the dataset from scratch.

48. Grabity – The KAIST Polyphenol Brand That Sold Out On Amazon

A 2023 spin-off from Korea’s KAIST led by MIT-trained professor Haeshin Lee, Polyphenol Factory’s Grabity uses a polyphenol complex to reinforce ageing and thinning hair. It launched in the US in December 2025 and, by its own account, sold out on Amazon shortly afterwards; it showed its LiftMax 615 complex at CES 2026 and landed in Printemps in Paris in April, with Galeries Lafayette also on the plan.

Why we care: Korea’s next beauty export isn’t a serum. It’s materials science for your hair.

49. Manuscript – Sephora’s Pick For Hair Longevity

Founded by former GQ grooming editor Nick Burns and Ye Jin, a Google and Airbnb alumna who went on to marketing roles at Ever/Body and Eadem, Manuscript hasn’t even launched yet: its debut Root Water scalp serum, which targets density, scalp health and greying at around $30 and is made with Korean manufacturer Kolmar, is due in early 2027. Self-funded on roughly $250,000 of savings, it was selected for Sephora Accelerate’s 2026 cohort in July.

Why we care: Hair longevity at a drugstore price, from an editor who spent 20 years reviewing the expensive stuff.

50. Olistic – The Drinkable Hair Supplement Doing $50 Million

Barcelona’s Olistic makes plant-based, clinically tested drinkable supplements for hair thinning, sold by subscription and through pharmacies in Spain, Germany, Portugal and Italy. Named to BeautyMatter’s Future50 in 2026, it reports more than 700,000 customers and projects $50 to $75 million in revenue this year.

Why we care: Ingestible beauty has a credibility problem. Clinical trials and 700,000 repeat customers go a long way to fixing it.

Beauty Tech Start-Ups: Your Questions Answered

What is beauty tech?

Beauty tech is any technology applied to skincare, makeup, hair or fragrance: AI skin analysis, virtual try-on, at-home devices, robots, biotech ingredients, personalised formulation and the software that runs beauty retail behind the scenes. In 2026 the fastest-growing corners are longevity skincare, AI shopping agents and salon robotics.

Which beauty tech start-ups raised the most money in 2026?

Of the companies on this list, Osmo’s $70 million Series B (February 2026), Highstock’s $30 million Series A (September 2026), 10Beauty’s $23.5 million (May 2026) and Shellworks’ $15 million Series A (March 2026) are the biggest rounds of the year so far.

Which UK beauty tech start-ups should I know?

Britain punches well above its weight: Renude, Skin Rocks, LYMA, YUV, Mitra Bio, Sequential, Shellworks, Sparxell, Selkie, Ruka, Fussy and Paiire are all UK-based and all on this list.

Who was on the 2025 list but not this one?

We dropped companies that no longer count as start-ups (Perfect Corp, which is going private; Amorepacific; Typology; Nécessaire), those with nothing new to report in the past year, and a couple whose “tech” credentials didn’t survive a second look. Twelve names carried over on merit.

This list was fully updated in September 2026. Spotted a beauty tech start-up we’ve missed? Tell us on Instagram @themodems.