When skincare gets a glow-up

Founder and CEO of the company, Rohit Chawla says Innovist was born from a gap in the market — for science-led beauty brands for younger Indian consumers. He founded the company alongside Vimal Bhola — who leads R&D and has decades of experience having developed products for global companies in the UK such as Johnson & Johnson — and Sifat Khurana, who leads brand strategy and consumer storytelling. Chawla leads the consumer business, shaping the company’s strategy and operating model.

“We made a deliberate decision to build our own R&D and manufacturing capabilities before launching a single brand,” says Chawla. “That is an unconventional approach among consumer startups, where brands often come first and product development is outsourced.” The products were created not to brandish trending ingredients but to solve specific consumer problems.

That bet on science-first positioning is what separates Innovist brands from the sea of white-label brands that have flooded D2C channels over the last five years, observes Shekhar Suman, co-founder, Brandshark. “Clinically validated formulations that gave consumers a reason to trust, ingredient-led branding, a D2C-first model that generated rich first-party data to iterate fast on products and messaging, and a well-timed pivot into quick-commerce and omnichannel retail have driven its success,” adds Suman. Moreover, disciplined fundraising of over $26 million over several rounds enabled Innovist to grow quickly but with structural depth. “All this made it attractive enough for a global giant to come knocking,” he says.

L’Oreal’s recent acquisition of Innovist follows several similar deals such as HUL’s acquisition of Minimalist and Emami’s investments in SkinKraft and Vedix.

The Gen Z edge

Young consumers — and Gen Z in particular — have been the main consumer base for Bare Anatomy, Chemist at Play and SunScoop. “Innovist’s brands have already built credibility with younger consumers who tend to be sceptical of traditional advertising and increasingly trust peer recommendations and ingredient transparency. The acquisition makes strategic sense because L’Oréal is not just acquiring brands, but also consumer insight,” opines Chetna Israni, co-founder & director, Morning Star BrandCom. She notes that each of these brands entered categories that are crowded but identified gaps left unaddressed by legacy players.

“Bare Anatomy brought ingredient-led haircare into the mainstream. Chemist At Play capitalised on the growing consumer awareness around science-backed skincare. SunScoop entered a category that was historically underdeveloped in India,” she says.

Chawla notes that though the company’s early adopters were young consumers, Innovist’s brands have expanded across age groups through word-of-mouth. “One of the most encouraging indicators for us has been the repeat purchase rate because it reflects product performance rather than just marketing,” he says.

Experts note that such acquisitions are a win-win as they also benefit start-ups that gain access to larger distribution networks and capital for scaling innovation over and above value chain efficiencies. At the same time, as Praveen Govindu, partner, Deloitte India points out, D2C players offer large MNCs a critical advantage in capturing Gen Z consumers who are projected to contribute 45% of online spending by 2030. “Post-acquisition, these brands are likely to scale significantly in both reach and category depth. Growth will likely come from expanding into adjacent categories, strengthening omnichannel presence, and leveraging immersive commerce models,” he remarks.

Sustaining this growth will require careful balancing by the acquiring companies. They will need to preserve the agility, authenticity, and creator-led engagement that define these brands, while integrating them into larger corporate structures, says Govindu.