Skin care has a new biotech player.
Debut, an incubator that has raised more than $70 million in funding thanks in part to a $40 million series B Round led last fall by L’Oréal’s Bold venture capital fund, has launched its first beauty brand.
Called Deinde — which translates to “what’s next” in Latin — the skin care line features three stock keeping units which seek to address and prevent “inflammaging,” or chronic, low-level inflammation that accelerates the aging process, a term first coined by professor Claudio Franceschi in 2000.
“We’re tapping into this new wave of preventative care, addressing what consumers can do in their 20s and 30s to sustain their skin health, versus repairing issues that have already occurred in terms of skin damage,” said Dominque Gagnon, vice president of consumer brands at Debut.
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The line includes a Purifying Whipped Cleanser, $32, a Moisture-locking Face Stick, $36, and a hero Skin-strengthening Serum, $88. Deinde’s formulas feature ceramides, upcycled date seed extract and biomimetic tripeptide, though the latter two products are primarily powered by the brand’s biotech-derived, anti-inflammatory ingredient, naringenin.
Naturally found in grapefruit extract, naringenin is a polyphenol purported by the brand to be 15 times more effective than niacinamide at addressing signs of inflammation including redness, fine lines, dryness and loss of elasticity.
“Historically, polyphenols have proven difficult to extract and stabilize by plant cultivation, extraction and processing, so there was this novel idea that we could deliver all of the benefits of this compound through biotech,” said Gagnon, adding that Debut does its ingredient screening, testing and formulating in-house, which “allows us to commercialize very rapidly, which is important for a series B company proving their relevance and path to profitability.”
Though Gagnon did not specify sales expectations for the launch, industry sources think Deinde could reach between $3 million to $5 million in first-year sales.
The direct-to-consumer brand will roll out between one to two new clinically tested skus each year, said Gagnon, with its next offerings intending to target crow’s feet and the neck area, respectively. “We are thinking about our portfolio from the perspective of what makes an invaluable addition to a core, minimalist regimen.”
Education, too, is a key component of the brand’s strategy. “We think inflammaging is going to be a new concept for the majority of consumers,” said Gagnon. “It’s a bit like SkinFix creating the conversation around the skin barrier, which now is so commonplace. Our consumer is leveling up from acne or pore management, stepping more into preventing the early signs of aging.”
To boost its educational efforts, Debut will soon introduce a dermatologist program to spread the word on Deinde, naringenin and inflammaging on TikTok and beyond.
“It’s one of our big hairy goals; I see inflammaging as something that should be in the everyday lexicon of someone managing their skin health five years from now; it should be highly searched for on sephora.com or google.com,” Gagnon said.
While Debut’s focus for 2024 is to propel Deinde to success, its next brand is slated to launch within the next two to three new years, and will also feature a biotech-derived hero ingredient.
“Debut has a mission to not just bring equivalent ingredients or equivalent performance to market; every ingredient we commercialize — including naringenin — is meant to outperform. We want to up the ante dramatically about what we can achieve topically for skin,” said Gagnon.
