Instagram made me buy it… but AI made me keep it. Techy cosmetics company Oddity said its sales were up nearly 60% this year in its preliminary quarterly earnings. Oddity is the tech-obsessed parent company of TikTok-popular makeup brands Il Makiage and Spoiled Child. Picture: AR shade-matching and algorithmic foundation quizzes. The biz uses machine-learning models to deliver “game-changing ingredient innovation,” its CEO said.
Fresh face: Oddity stock is down 40% since its July debut. The company says it expects ~30% sales growth for the third quarter.
Lab coat of foundation: In April, Oddity said it would buy biotech startup Revela and open Oddity Labs. The goal: apply molecular pharma techniques to cosmetics development.
From pores to pixels… Oddity doesn’t consider itself a beauty biz. It prides itself on being a tech company, as shown by its intense website. Apart from saying it’s “built to be the most impactful platform of our lifetime,” Oddity highlights its “massive data lake” and 40M+ users who it says help it to develop better products and recommendations. The startup said it doesn’t hire from the OG beauty industry, but that it recruits technology specialists and is focused on innovation (“our enemy is today”).
Tech sells… Tech companies have historically commanded high valuations because of their expected growth potential, and Oddity is far from the only company tech-ifying beauty. Former unicorn Glossier tried and failed to position itself as a tech company, and legacy beauty titan L’Oréal scooped up AR/AI upstart Modiface in 2018 for virtual try-ons. Oddity, with its data-driven biotech angle, may have a bigger claim to the tech name. That might be why it can sell foundation for $48/bottle — and expects a 68% quarterly gross margin.