L’Oréal invests in software Replika social commerce platform

PARIS — L’Oréal is delving into e-commerce by taking a minority stake in social selling platform Replika Software Inc.

The world’s largest cosmetics manufacturer made the investment through its venture capital fund called BOLD Business Opportunities for L’Oréal Development. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Social commerce is the use of social media to connect with communities and promote and sell products and services. This is a trend that is already big in Asia. There, for example, e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and Little Red Book integrate user-generated content with great success.

“Social commerce is an exciting new form of e-commerce that enables consumers, influencers, experts, beauty professionals and retailers to sell brands and products on social platforms in formats such as live shopping or live streaming” – Lubomira Rochet, Chief Digital Officer L. “Oréal” – wrote in a statement.

“Today, e-commerce already accounts for 25 percent of L’Oréal’s revenues,” she continued. “The rise of social commerce is a great opportunity for our brands to reinvent consumers’ beauty experiences around the world.”

Rochet called Replika Software a pioneer in this space and said L’Oréal is excited about the opportunity to create social commerce at scale.

“Our ambition is to break this new channel and create a healthy, vibrant ecosystem of social sellers for the beauty category,” she said.

Replika Software is a turnkey sales platform that enables brands to launch and scale a network of social sellers to sell online and connect with consumers. Kareen Mallet, a former fashion executive at Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, and Corey Gottlieb, an advertising, marketing and technology entrepreneur, founded the company in 2016. The company is headquartered in New York, with offices in Paris.

“As an industry, we are just scratching the surface of how powerful social commerce can be when combined with the enormous scale offered by a global online community,” Mallet said.

She said L’Oréal’s financial support and expertise are helping Replika realize its vision faster and more broadly.

See also:

Agora, a social beauty startup, has raised $6.6 million

Cosmetic review platform Supergreat raises Series A led by Benchmark

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