Beacon Award Winner Droplette Grows Portfolio Of Skincare Products To Pair With Its Signature Device

Droplette, winner of the 2021 Beacon Award for Innovation of the Year, is building out a suite of products beyond its signature device.

Designed to infuse formulas into the skin, MIT-trained scientists Madhavi Gavini and Rathi Srinivas originally conceived the Droplette device for treating a severe pediatric skin disease called epidermolysis bullosa before realizing it had a place in the beauty industry. Droplette promises active ingredients penetrate 20 times deeper into the skin with usage compared to without—and it’s created topicals powered by potent actives to pair with its infusion technology. 

In development for seven years, Droplette launched Growth Factors GF-01 capsules on Sept. 1. Growth Factors GF-01 follows Tranexamic Eraser, a product targeting dark spots that premiered in June. At the end of August, Droplette introduced an app to house tutorials on its device and topical products, help with goal tracking and provide free access to on-staff aestheticians. Earlier, the brand released Retinol Renewer, Collagen Hydrofiller and Glycolic Illuminator capsules.

Droplette describes growth factors as “superhero” proteins naturally made in human bodies that drive the quality of cells and directly affect the physical aspects of aging. They decline starting in people’s 20s. Droplette’s Growth Factors GF-01 has a lot on its plate: It’s built to activate stem cells, reverse cell quality decline and replace aging skin cells with new ones. Gavini proclaims the new cells are higher quality cells than most bodies have produced in years. 

“Vitamin A or retinol work by increasing cell turnover, so they promote your skin cells to basically replicate faster,” she says. “But it’s not giving you younger cells, it’s the same cells, but they’re replicating, so you’re still picking up DNA damage.” She continues, “Growth factors are treated like liquid gold in a lab, it’s like $17 per milliliter, so a liter is basically the equivalent of your salary as a graduate student.”

Droplette works with growth factors derived from adult human donors sourced from biopharmaceutical company Hope Biosciences. The proteins are particularly fragile and have to be shipped frozen. Consumers are instructed to store the capsules in the refrigerator, and if they’re not applied to the skin within 30 days, in the freezer. Droplette expects them to turn to the Growth Factor GF-01 capsules for big occasions or to assist with healing from cosmetic procedures such as Fraxel rather than regular application. 

Growth factors have been explored in academic studies for having a variety of functions, including regrowing bones and treating spinal cord injuries. There’s evidence they can mobilize dormant skin stem cells. Gavini explains that what makes working with growth factors in skincare so compelling is that, in essence, they’re a way to get biologically younger skin. She says, “That’s kind of the dream at the end of the day, isn’t it?”

Dreams don’t come cheap, and Droplette’s Growth Factors GF-01 is priced at $380 for 28 capsules, above its Retinol Renewal, Collagen Hydrofiller and Glycolic Illuminator capsules, which are priced from $39 to $79 for a one-month supply. Droplette’s electromechanical device converts ingredients into an aerosol to shrink molecules down to less than 500 daltons in size and quickly disperse those droplets onto the skin. It sells separately for $299. The newest model of the device, Connected Droplette, is rolling out this month and is firmware-optimized for a seamless Bluetooth 5.0 connection to the Droplette app.

Women in their mid-to-late 30s are squarely in Droplette’s core customer demographic. Gavini shares that the brand’s customer retention rate is almost four times the industry standard for skincare and extols its net promoter score (NPS), a metric indicating whether a customer will recommend a product. She says, “Eighty-six percent of our customers have said that they like Droplette better than any other product they’ve ever used.”  

Outside of its device, Droplette’s Collagen Hydrofiller capsules have been a perennial bestseller, but Tranexamic Eraser is generating strong sales in the two months it’s been available. Nearly 20% of customers have added it to their carts, according to Droplette. Lip-plumping capsules with hyaluronic acid and peppermint are among the capsules that will join its product lineup in the future. The company forecasts that its 2022 sales will triple its 2020 sales. Droplette entered the market in 2020. 

Droplette is available on its own e-commerce website and Nordstrom’s site. It’s figuring out how to best communicate with shoppers in environments that it doesn’t control. Bundles are a key element of its strategy. For example, it sells regimen bundles like the $79 Radiant Detox two-week regimen bundle with 17 Collagen Hydrofiller capsules, eight Retinol Renewer capsules and three Glycolic Illuminator capsules. 

“When customers come to us on our site, we have this opportunity to educate them, and it’s certainly more challenging to do so in other retail channels,” says Gavini. “We learned about what, organically, users prefer to buy without that advantage of deeper education on different formulations.” 

Looking forward, Gavini divulges Droplette is investing heavily in robotics automation to fill and seal its capsules. Last year, the company closed a $15.4 million series B round led by Victress Capital and Spark Capital. “Some of our ingredients are not super stable and a robot can fill and seal it way faster than a human can, really limiting light and air exposure,” says Gavini. “There are amazing beauty and skincare brands that have wonderful actives that they work with, and we think there’s a huge opportunity there to take the same exciting ingredients and get more efficacious delivery by pairing them with Droplette.”