Life-sciences investors might not have paid close attention when beauty-products company Living Proof announced it had taken on Jennifer Aniston as a co-owner and celebrity spokesperson, as The Wall Street Journal first reported.
Polaris Venture Partners–a firm whose portfolio includes stem-cell therapies, transcranial magnetic stimulators, nanoparticle therapeutics and implantable medical devices—was the driving force behind Living Proof, which is in the business of giving women prettier hair.
Jon Flint, a managing general partner at the firm, said it wasn’t too difficult to convince other investors and a team of “rock-star scientists” that the beauty-products business not only involves hard science, but will likely bring astronomical returns.
“Look at it this way,” he said, “Bare Escentuals was sold for $1.7 billion, and that company did not have anything proprietary. They were selling minerals. Burt’s Bees sold for about $900 million, and, again, nothing proprietary.”
Living Proof, which sells products to straighten hair, restore dry hair and eliminate frizz, has scientists from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has nine patents under its belt related to polymer technology.
Cosmetic-products companies can make enormous profits, he said, but they generally plow all of them into marketing and advertising—especially snaring celebrity spokespeople.
What if the profits were actually put into the science behind the products? Could beauty-product companies experience a quantum leap of some kind?
These questions were intriguing enough for a team of PhD scientists, some of whom jumped ship from major research projects to join Living Proof, Flint said. Among them is Robert Langer, an MIT professor who has helped Polaris Venture Partners launch
more than a dozen serious-minded biotechnology companies.
Whatever happens with Living Proof, one thing is certain. The company will not spend its revenue wooing celebrities. Jennifer Aniston, the new face of the company, is an equity shareholder in Living Proof, which could mean that the usual arrangement has been turned on its head.
Life-sciences investors have long lamented that the business of saving lives is less glamorous–and less lucrative–than building games or social networks.
But if a beauty-products company fronted by an actress gives Polaris more financial freedom to back stem-cell therapeutics and genome-analyzers, more VCs might think about getting into the shampoo business.
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