Outer Biosciences Uses AI and 30-Day Living Skin to Find Cosmetic Ingredients

2 articles · Updated · TechCrunch · Aug 21

Outer Biosciences says it can keep donated human skin alive for up to 30 days and use the tissue to train an AI system that predicts promising cosmetic ingredients.
That longer window lets the startup observe slow skin processes such as collagen remodeling, pigmentation change and barrier repair, then feed repeated molecular readouts back into the model.
The company says AI has lifted discovery speed from a couple of leads in about 18 months to roughly one new candidate every six weeks, with six active leads and dozens of additional hits.
Founded in 2022 by Michael Polansky, Outer has raised about $23 million, employs 19 people, and plans to license or sell ingredients rather than build its own beauty brand.
Polansky says four of the six current leads look commercializable, as the startup begins operating more publicly in a field where rivals such as Vivodyne are also pairing biology with AI.