Beauty tech company Perfect Corp. raises $50M

Dive Brief:

Perfect Corp. raised $50 million in a Series C funding round led by Goldman Sachs, the beauty technology company announced on Wednesday.
The company said funds will go toward augmenting the company's artificial intelligence beauty technologies for the retail sector and expanding internationally. The capital infusion comes as the beauty company is growing its operations, investing in AI tools and expanding its global footprint, the company said.
The company's YouCam Makeup technology allows users to virtually try on SKUs, diagnose skin conditions, get personalized recommendations and discover products.

Dive Insight:

In a statement, Xinyi Feng, a managing director in the merchant banking division of Goldman Sachs, said that the integration of AI, AR, machine learning and other technologies into the beauty sector will lead to advantages including more digital sales, increased personalization and better consumer engagement.

Over the past couple of years, Perfect Corp. has continued to release new beauty try-on tools. In July 2019, the company introduced "YouCam for Web," a tool which lets users test cosmetics before buying them and provides analytics for small and mid-sized businesses around AR testing on their website. In September, the company rolled out four contactless makeup testing features including gesture control, voice activation, face mask detection and virtual lipstick sampling.

As Perfect Corp. created its own tools for consumers and emerging businesses, larger companies have tapped the company for its cosmetic technology. Alibaba teamed up with the company in September 2019 to add Perfect Corp.'s YouCam virtual try-on tech to Tmall and Taobao. Snapchat recently partnered with the company to add its AR cosmetic try-on technology into the social media app.

"This Series C investment will further drive the development of our solutions globally across all beauty categories and channels for the complete 360 beauty SaaS experience for consumer[s]," Alice Chang, CEO of Perfect Corp., said in a statement.