Il Makiage parent Oddity is about to ‘supercharge hypergrowth’

If you’re on Instagram or TikTok or Twitter, chances are you’ve encountered Il Makiage, the fast-growing DTC beauty brand that cracked the code for online shade-matching. You may also have been blasted with ads for Spoiled Child, another beauty company, which serves up the right masks, serums, moisturizers, and ingestibles for specific skin and hair concerns. The former has become an influencer-driven phenomenon, while the latter has raked in $48 million in gross sales in its first year alone. Now their parent company, Tel Aviv- and New York-based Oddity, is acquiring Boston-based Revela, a year-old artificial-intelligence-powered molecule-discovery biotech firm specifically focused on beauty and wellness. The deal cost Oddity $76 million. Revela founder Evan Zhao will assume the role of chief science officer. All signs seem to be pointing to a possible IPO.



“I have been hunting for years for this,” Oddity CEO Oran Holtzman tells Fast Company. Revela’s technology, he says, represents “a game changer for the industry, with unlimited categories, use cases, and form factors.”



From left: David Zhang , Shiran Holtzman Erel , Oran Holtzman , and Evan Zhao [Photo: Alberto Vasari for ODDITY]



Oddity, which launched five years ago, today counts more than 40 million users and says it bases its R&D on more than one billion consumer data points. Revela, meanwhile, is backed by Khosla Ventures and Montage Ventures and, in just over a year of existence, devised two molecules: ProCelinyl, which it says revives dormant hair follicles in less than eight weeks and is found in Revela’s Hair Revival Serum ($98); and Fibroquin, which it claims can rejuvenate aging skin, much like retinol, and can be found in the company’s Fibroquin Essence ($138). Typically, it takes a beauty company 12 to 18 months to bring a new product to market. With Revela’s technology, Holtzman predicts that Oddity will achieve such milestones far quicker. This acquisition, he says, will “supercharge hyper growth” for the company.



How does Revela discover novel molecules that benefit humans? Let’s use ProCelinyl as an example: Scientists first develop a biological model of a hair follicle using real human-hair follicle cells. While billions of molecules have the potential to help regrowth, testing all of them would take many lifetimes, so lab workers instead test only tens of thousands of prospective molecules in dishes filled with those bioidentical hair follicles. Those results are then plugged into Revela’s AI to train it on the interaction between a molecule’s structure and the hair follicle. The AI can then use the training data to virtually test those billions of potential molecules (which, after all, are just hypothetical atomic bonds) in minutes, hunting for any combination of atoms that directly restores hair follicle cells.



Because no AI is foolproof, the handful of invented molecules that are most effective are then tested again in the lab on human skin cells, lest any sensitivities or toxicities emerge. The single molecule that passed all those tests in this particular case was then put through human trials. Revela called it ProCelinyl, and in the company’s consumer studies, the company says that 97% of women saw improvements in their hair thickness in just eight weeks. ProCelinyl, which Revela says beat Rogaine in clinical trials, is the first true ingredient innovation in hair care in more than 40 years, according to the company’s science team.



Of course, other beauty brands have invested in AI models to rocket products to market—see L’Oreal’s ModiFace, and customized wig maker Parfait—but none has made AI the core of its R&D. Oddity’s acquisition of Revela, Holtzman believes, will allow the company to make beauty and wellness breakthroughs similar to those that happen in the worlds of medicine and pharmaceuticals. And he’s putting money behind that: Oddity also announced the establishment of Oddity Labs, a $25 million facility in Boston custom built for Revela’s team to invent novel molecules, probiotics, peptides, and other biological compounds.