With the opening of the 8th China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, L'Oréal Group marked its third consecutive year participating in the Innovation Incubation Zone with its BIG BANG Beauty Tech Open Innovation Program ("BIG BANG"). Under the theme "Elevate the Innovation for the Future", L'Oréal presented the cutting-edge achievements of its open innovation ecosystem. Throughout this year's CIIE, the company reaffirmed its firm commitment to beauty tech transformation, while also unveiling a series of high-impact initiatives and in-depth dialogues that underscored its role in connecting global intelligence and inspiring industry-wide innovation.

Key highlights include:

•  Announcement of the 19 winning startups of the 2025 BIG BANG North Asia - including French companies from the BIG BANG China "French Track" - selected from over 700 entries, marking the greatest participation in the program's history.

•  The Innovation Summit, held alongside the awards ceremony, featuring roundtable discussions with representatives from the winning startups on the future of beauty technology.

•  The debut of a "Sustainability" track, where five startups were shortlisted for L'Oréal's global "Sustainable Innovation Accelerator" program, with opportunities to gain customized acceleration support.

•  Multiple BIG BANG winners launching pilots with L'Oréal, accelerating the journey from innovation to real-world impact.

"At L'Oréal, our very foundation is rooted in science, and innovation isn't just a buzzword," said Barbara Lavernos, L'Oréal Group Deputy Chief Executive Officer in charge of Research, Innovation and Technology. "We wholeheartedly believe in the extraordinary power of open innovation. For us, BIG BANG serves as the crucial bridge - connecting us with dynamic startups, fostering cross-industry collaboration, and fast-tracking the development of truly disruptive solutions. We firmly believe that the future of beauty isn't solely about groundbreaking products, it's fundamentally about groundbreaking collaborations. Open innovation enables us to 'create the beauty that moves the world'!"

Cutting-Edge Technology Takes Center Stage at CIIE

Across the Innovation Incubation Zone and the Consumer Goods Exhibition Area at CIIE, L'Oréal showcased 24 pioneering startups from the Mainland China, Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan Region of China, as well as Japan, South Korea, and France. Deeply integrating artificial intelligence (AI), these companies demonstrated multidimensional empowerment across consumer experience, business applications, research and development, and supply chain. Their exhibits highlighted breakthroughs in biotechnology, digital technology, and innovative devices, while for the first time incorporating a sustainability-themed showcase that demonstrated the immense potential of beauty tech.

Among the featured participants: Black Barrels from the Hong Kong SAR unveiled multiple consumer GenAI products which boasts over 20 million global users and showcases the creative potential of Generative AI (GenAI); Taiwan Region's Speed 3D Inc. introduced the world's first AI-powered smart beauty vending machine, transforming the "try-and-buy" concept into a tangible retail experience. South Korea's REPLA Inc. presented an innovative recycling process that converts discarded plastics into premium regenerated materials, offering a compelling sustainable packaging solution. Japan's Matlantis Corporation demonstrated atomic-level simulation technology capable of operating 80 million times faster than conventional methods, hence significantly accelerating formulation design, performance prediction, and product development cycles. Meanwhile, France's Greez launched a unique anti-waste e-commerce platform for the beauty industry, turning the concept of "circular economy" into practical reality.

Meanwhile, innovators from Mainland China drew strong attention in the Innovation Incubation Zone. ShengShu VIDU presented a GenAI visual creation platform, enables brands to rapidly produce high-quality video content, driving efficiency and creativity in beauty digital marketing. Rightway introduced its "carbon-negative" green packaging concept, redefining sustainability and bringing eco-innovation from the lab to everyday life.

Through the BIG BANG open-innovation platform, emerging tech innovators from L'Oréal North Asia took center stage at CIIE, showcasing their breakthroughs and jointly shaping an intelligent and sustainable beauty ecosystem for the future.

Winners Announced: Incubating the Next Generation of Beauty Tech Stars

Since its launch in China, BIG BANG has expanded over the past five years across North Asia and onto the global stage, establishing itself as a pioneering platform for open innovation. The program fosters regional synergies and opens new pathways for startups worldwide to grow and collaborate. Building on this momentum, the 2025 edition attracted strong interest from startups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) around the world, drawing more than 700 participants, the greatest in the program's history.

Following a rigorous multi-stage selection process, 19 outstanding startups emerged as winners:

•  Mainland China "Phygital Consumers Experience" track: Noumena, Shengshu VIDU

•  Mainland China "Future Science" track: Deep Principle, Dieckmann, Hesheng Tech

•  Mainland China "Operation 4.0" track: Fuzflo, XENSE ROBOTICS, FANGXINGWEI

•  North Asia "Sustainability" track: i2Cool Limited, REPLA Inc., Rightway

•  Mainland China, French track: CORE BIOGENESIS

•  China Hong Kong SAR/Taiwan Region: Black Barrels, Speed 3D Inc.

•  Japan/Korea: Matlantis Corporation, ZEALS, Inc., STEMON, BioNT, Soojib

Notably, several of these companies are already collaborating commercially with L'Oréal, effectively accelerating the real-world application of their breakthroughs. For instance, Rightway's "carbon-negative" materials have been adopted in the "L'Oréal for the Future" initiative, while FANGXINGWEI and XENSE ROBOTICS are exploring ways to enhance L'Oréal's supply chain agility and resilience.

On November 6, The 2025 BIG BANG Awarding Ceremony and Innovation Summit was held on the main stage of the CIIE Innovation Incubation Zone. The event brought together more than 100 startup representatives, ecosystem partners, and government officials from across North Asia to celebrate the latest achievements in open innovation. Distinguished attendees included Barbara Lavernos, L'Oréal Group Deputy Chief Executive Officer in charge of Research, Innovation and Technology; Pascal Gondrand, Commercial counsellor of the Embassy of France; Tomohiro Suda, Consul of the Economic Section, Consul-General of Japan in Shanghai; and Leigang Weng, Chairman of Oriental Beauty Valley Group Incorporated, and bestowed the awards upon the winning enterprises.

Cross-Border Dialogue Inspires Collaborative Innovation

To further foster cross-sector collaboration and inspire innovation, L'Oréal hosted the North Asia BIG BANG Innovation Summit alongside the Awarding Ceremony. The summit featured a roundtable discussion with representatives from the 2025 BIG BANG winning startups - Deep Principle, Rightway, REPLA Inc., and ZEALS, Inc. - who shared insights from their respective fields on advancing innovation and upgrading beauty technology.

During the roundtable discussion, innovators from diverse fields shared their professional perspectives and envisioned the future where technology and beauty converge.

Haojun Jia, CEO & founder of Deep Principle, noted that AI is driving a major shift in materials research—"We help material R&D move from discovery to design." He added that AI can become increasingly intelligent through continuous experimentation, thereby stepping out of the triangle in beauty formulation R&D - achieving balance among depth, speed, and budget.

Rightway approached the topic from a packaging perspective, highlighting the significant impact of "carbon-negative materials" on "carbon and plastic reduction". Peter Zhu, CEO & founder shared a real-life example from their collaboration with L'Oréal: "We are now substituting more than 1000 tons plastic for the bubble films for logistic and transportation annually. Our material solution helps eliminating more than 50% carbon emission, reducing 30% virgin plastic usage per year."

Extending the discussion to recycling and circularity, Yunju Kim, Chief Strategy Officer of REPLA Inc., emphasized how biotechnology can give new life to waste. "We utilize bacteria to selectively recover valuable plastic resources from waste materials. Right now, our focus is on recycling polypropylene (PP) for reintegration into cosmetic packaging," she explained. Kim also reflected on the mentorship experience from BIG BANG: "We continue to gain unique and eye-opening insights on markets and consumers, and how our technology could connect them."

Masa Shimizu, CEO and founder of ZEALS, Inc. in Japan, shifted the focus to the retail front, speaking from a customer-experience perspective, highlighted the importance of natural service.  "We want to leverage voice AI to infuse 'Omotenashi', the culture of Japanese Hospitality into the online store experience." He added, "Innovation isn't something you explain. It's something people feel."

The roundtable became a vibrant exchange of ideas, where diverse perspectives converged, bringing together the rationality of technology with the sensibility of beauty, and infusing new vitality into the spirit of "open co-creation".

Looking back, BIG BANG has not only served as a catalytic path for startups to turn ideas into reality, but also has united breakthrough technologies under the shared pursuit of "beauty". Today, L'Oréal continues to deepen its collaboration with global technology leaders including IBM, Google, and NVIDIA, integrating AI into BIG BANG's innovation outcomes and making AI a powerful engine driving progress in beauty tech. Moving forward, BIG BANG will remain committed to open collaboration with innovators worldwide, fostering end-to-end synergy and sustainable transformation across the beauty value chain. As an essential platform for this journey, the CIIE continues to showcase China's innovation vitality and amplify the BIG BANG story, connecting the future and inspiring the world.