FACEN is a new startup from Germany, and with a name like that, what do you think are they going to offer? FACEN identified two problems that beauty product consumers have and wants to support make-up users with their platform. The FACEN team consists of Tuyen Tran (pictured on the right, founder and managing director), Duy Le (co-founder and product manager, and Aiping Li (influencer manager) among others.
The problems in the scope
They state that beauty product consumers spend a lot of time watching online videos on platforms like Bilibili or YouTube and following their favorite beauty influencers but that it’s actually challenging to find the right content that matches someone’s personal style and face shape.
The second problem they want to address is the fact that the beauty industry throws random products at a largely untargeted group of potential buyers. The products offered are not personalized, and it’s difficult to know what’s right and what’s wrong for each individual unless they buy it and try it out.
How does FACEN plan to solve this?
FACEN is building a platform with which they plan to pair users with influencers and products that match their style and face shape. So the users get a personalized feed of content to browse and products to check, which fits them. For influencers who work directly with FACEN, they are offering a sales commission based on how well their content performs.
There are rivals in this field as well. Solutions like Virtual Artist from Sephora, Modiface from L’Oreal, or the Douglas Beauty App seek to get a foot into the door, but there is no single dominating provider in this market yet. In order to gain an edge over the competition, FACEN is working on advanced face shape analysis powered by AI, which helps the users finding the right tutorials and products to shop.
So what’s the status right now?
The Germany-based startup is currently assessing options for getting pre-seed funding. A prototype and pilot is currently being worked on, and the first test users, including influencers and consumers, can already sign up to check the first version of the service.
As the next steps, they have scheduled the public release of their service for October, but an influencer-only access will already be ready in September. The ecommerce part of the service is planned for November and will involve matched shoppable elements to be bought on their platform. The transaction will be processed in cooperation with large beauty product providers.
Support and lessons learned at the Founder Institute
Tuyen Tran, the founder of FACEN, graduated from the Founder Institute Berlin in June 2020 with this business idea. The Founder Institute, founded by Adeo Ressi and Jonathan Greechan, is a pre-seed startup accelerator that has already helped more than 4,300 companies to be founded in more than 200 cities since 2009.
FACEN image film
Photo credit: All material has been provided to us directly by FACEN with permission for press use.
Source: In direct contact with Founder & CEO / information from the FACEN website
