Indian Startups Shine in L’Oréal SAPMENA Beauty Tech 2025

Sravathi AI and Without from India are among four startups crowned winners of L’Oréal’s 2025 SAPMENA Big Bang Beauty Tech Innovation Program, the biggest open innovation competition of its kind in the South Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa (SAPMENA) region.

The winning startups – Sravathi AI (India), Without (India), Halo AI (UAE), and Heatseeker (Australia) – now have the opportunity to collaborate with L’Oréal in a commercial pilot with one of the Group’s 37 international brands. They will also gain potential exposure to 35 markets across SAPMENA and embark on a year-long mentorship journey with senior executives from L’Oréal and the programme’s partners, namely Accenture, Google and Meta. Wubble AI (Singapore) also received a Special Mention.

Hailing from SAPMENA's vast and promising talent pool, these teams highlight the extraordinary creativity and innovation of the region's vibrant startup ecosystem. This ecosystem is driven by dynamic market growth, large populations, a rising middle class and digitally-savvy young consumers. This ecosystem, particularly vibrant in India with successful innovators from the program, underscores the need for continued support and strategic alliances to drive future growth.

Vismay Sharma, President of L'Oréal SAPMENA Zone, said, “SAPMENA is one of the world's most dynamic regions, with millions of young, digitally-savvy consumers fuelling the rapid rise of digital commerce and brand innovation. While Silicon Valley often comes to mind for startups, we believe the centre of gravity for innovation is increasingly diversifying and shifting to regions like SAPMENA where market demand is shaping ideas to impact. The pitches at the Grand Finale are a testament to this and reaffirm the opportunities for open innovation here. By partnering with these next-gen innovators, we can accelerate the pace of beauty tech transformation and amplify the impact of new ideas across the beauty ecosystem.”

Saloni Shah Javeri, Chief Digital and Marketing Officer, L’Oréal India, said, “We are thrilled to celebrate Indian entrepreneurs emerging as winners for the second consecutive year at the Big Bang Beauty Tech Innovation Program Grand Finale. It is truly inspiring to see how homegrown solutions are not only addressing real consumer needs but also reinforcing India’s growing prominence as a global hub for innovation. L’Oréal is proud to champion these innovators who are passionately bringing beauty and technology closer together, showcasing the incredible talent and creativity abundant in India."

The 2025 programme reached over 50,000 startups and drew applications from across the SAPMENA region, including teams from Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand. Over nine months, the startups competed in a rigorous process, presenting solutions in areas such as Consumer Experience, Content & Media, New Commerce, Tech for Good, and Science for Beauty. The competition culminated in the Grand Finale in Singapore on 7 November, where 10 shortlisted startups pitched their bold, scalable and tech-driven ideas to a distinguished judging panel of industry experts from L’Oréal, Google, Meta and Veros Ventures. In 2024, two Bengaluru-based  startups - NeuralGarage and Live2.ai emerged among the winners of the inaugural L’Oréal Big Bang Beauty Tech Innovation Program for the SAPMENA region.

L'Oréal is dedicated to fostering a culture of innovation. In 2025, L’Oréal Groupe was named the most innovative company in Europe by Fortune magazine, out of 300 companies, in a ranking spanning 21 countries and 16 industries in Europe. Fast Company named L'Oréal in its Top 50 2024 Best Workplaces for Innovators list and winner of the Beauty and Fashion category, in recognition of its commitment to encourage and develop innovation at all levels.  

Results of the 2025 L'Oréal SAPMENA Big Bang Beauty Tech Innovation Program

Grand Finale Winners 

·         Sravathi AI (India): Sravathi AI is a silico chemistry AI platform that designs and develops advanced pharma using AI, molecular modelling, biochemistry and chemical engineering. Sravathi AI is an AI-powered company delivering end-to-end solutions for molecule discovery, development and scalable manufacturing. Its drug discovery platform rapidly identifies novel drug candidates, streamlines hit-to-lead and lead optimisation, and reduces clinical risks, building a robust pipeline of 9 therapeutic assets across multiple disease areas. Complementing this, Sravathi AI’s award-winning Chemistry AI platform revolutionises chemical development with automated route-of-synthesis design, yield optimisation, impurity prediction and process scalability.

·         Without (India): Without is a material science enterprise ethically transforming unrecyclable waste into high-quality, recyclable materials and products, creating a circular economy. A deep-tech social enterprise based in Pune, India, Without (by Ashaya) focuses on addressing two deeply interconnected global challenges: plastic waste and poverty. It has developed a patented chemo-mechanical process that transforms “impossible-to-recycle” plastic waste, such as multi-layered packaging from chips, chocolate, and shampoo sachets, into high-quality, toxin-free and recyclable materials. Without believes circularity must be ethical to be effective and its model aims to create environmental and social value simultaneously and to demonstrate that scalable, tech-enabled solutions can drive deep, lasting change.

·         Halo AI (UAE): Halo AI helps brands scale their content creator collaborations with AI-powered analysis to manage, vet and select creators. Influencer marketing is booming, but the challenge has been a reliance on inefficient, manual processes, which makes it difficult for brands to find truly authentic partners and for creators to monetise effectively. Halo AI addresses this by using advanced AI to precisely match brands with nano and micro-influencers, creating authentic, high-engagement collaborations. Its AI-powered platform reduces manual workflows by 80% and allows campaigns to launch in as little as 15 minutes, ensuring personal, impactful brand messages reach consumers through trusted influencers with genuine audience connections.

·         Heatseeker (Australia): Heatseeker enables marketers to run live, in-market experiments with real customers using its AI-powered platform, providing rapid, quantitative evidence. A significant challenge for businesses before launching a new product is making decisions based on traditional market research, which can be unreliable or fail to capture genuine customer intent. Heatseeker transforms this process by enabling teams to run rapid, real-world experiments with actual customers on platforms like Meta and LinkedIn, directly measuring authentic customer behaviours like clicks to gauge interest in new products, messages and markets. The platform leverages advanced AI to automate experiment setup, analyse competitor and audience data, and deliver actionable insights within days. This ensures companies launch offerings that are relevant to and resonate with consumers, particularly those launching new products, messages, customer segments or entering new markets.