Sweet Chemistry has raised $1 million as beauty investors hunt for the next big thing in science-powered skincare and peptides.
Although peptides for health and beauty are nothing new—copper peptides were incorporated in skincare over a half century ago and insulin, the first therapeutic peptide, has been around double that time—their current explosion is unprecedented. Sweet Chemistry represents an evolution in peptide technology for skincare with Matrikynes, a proprietary form of polypeptides called matrikines born from a decade of regenerative medicine research on repairing damaged organs.
The global peptide skincare market was valued at $2.3 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $6.6 billion by 2033, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 12.3%, according to market research firm Global Growth Insights. Meanwhile, market research firm Grand View Research estimates the broader peptide therapeutics market at $117.3 billion in 2024 and projects it will more than double to $260.3 billion by 2030, growing at 10.77% annually.
Sweet Chemistry’s funding round was led by Sandbridge Capital and includes investors Manica Blain, founder of Top Knot Ventures, Charles Chase, founder of No Other Ventures, Michelle Miller, CMO of Vegamour, and Kevin Murphy, managing director of Sonoma Brands Capital. Murphy invested in the brand in his personal capacity.
Sandbridge Capital participated in the round through Clean Beauty Holdings, its arm focused on emerging early-stage brands. The firm, a backer of Kulfi, DedCool, Peach & Lily, Fara Homidi, Madison Reed and U Beauty, originally invested in Sweet Chemistry last year. It previously exited Ilia and Youth to the People.
“With AI, it’s going to be easy to realize the smoke and mirrors behind ‘proprietary peptide complexes,’ so science-based brands are going to have to figure out a way to get actual novel technology into their products,” says Sweet Chemistry CEO and co-founder Alec Batis, a chemist who was formerly VP of global marketing at Nars and held research and development and marketing roles at L’Oréal. “Sweet Chemistry is science-driven skincare with defensible IP that the world has never seen before. The Matrikynes peptide IP, it just doesn’t exist anywhere else.”
Blain, who’s invested in nine beauty companies in the last three years (Blume, Damdam Tokyo, Dune Suncare, Everist, Iris&Romeo and Sahajan among them), says, “What really sealed the deal for me was the rigorous science behind the signature peptide technology. It’s not just marketing, it’s lab-driven, with meaningful proof of effect. I now have both the serum and the cream from Sweet Chemistry in my core skincare regimen, and I’m genuinely excited to be part of the ride.”
Beauty dealmaker appetite for science-backed skincare is evident in recent M&A activity. In June, L’Oréal acquired a majority stake in British science-driven skincare brand Medik8 for a reported $1.1 billion. In April conversations with 13 consumer packaged goods investors in the United States and Europe, the venture capital firm XRC Ventures discovered they identified science-backed skincare as the most compelling category for early-stage funding due to high customer retention rates and conglomerate interest.
“Sweet Chemistry is science-driven skincare that’s defensible with IP that you’ve never seen before.”
Sweet Chemistry’s funding will go toward marketing, advertising, product development and talent. The brand isn’t done fundraising and is in the midst of pursuing another tranche. The goal is to secure $1.5 million to $3 million.
Sweet Chemistry has four products on the market priced from $148 to $170: Barrier Repair Hydra-Serum, Barrier Repair Oil-Serum, Elasticity Reinforcing Hydra-Cream and Elasticity Reinforcing Lipid-Cream. It’s expecting $1 million in sales this year and $3 million to $4 million next year. Half of this year was spent in pre-order status as the brand awaited inventory. Last month, Sweet Chemistry made its retail debut at Violet Grey, and it anticipates retail expansion in 2026.
The brand’s parent company, Xylyx Bio Inc., spun out of Columbia University’s Laboratory for Stem Cell and Tissue Engineering in 2016. Xylyx is responsible for Sweet Chemistry’s novel ingredient technology, Matrikynes. The polypeptides are derived from upcycled bovine bone from the food industry, material that would otherwise be discarded, and contain over 300 natural extracellular matrix polypeptides. A clinical study of topical application of the ingredient on 56 women from 35 to 65 years old over an eight-week period showed statistically significant improvement in the structure, function and appearance of damaged and aging skin.
Xylyx ventured into the beauty industry by launching the skincare brand Viviq Skin Health in 2021. Unfamiliar with the beauty industry, the company hired Batis as a consultant. Rare in the industry, Batis has worked across both marketing and R&D, having begun his career as a quality control chemist at Pfizer. Batis scrapped Viviq and unveiled Sweet Chemistry in September 2023.
Although Batis had no plans to join the brand as a founder, Xylyx’s science convinced him to sign on. He secured a $500,000 Small Business Administration loan for the brand and put his apartment up as collateral. Batis secured 40% ownership of the brand to Xylyx’s 60%. Sweet Chemistry has a license to Xylyx’s ingredient technology in perpetuity.
“From the time I first met Alec a couple of years back, I was struck by the unusually strong blend in his professional background of scientific and technical skill on the one hand, with brand and marketing strength on the other hand,” says Murphy. “It is impressive enough to find someone with the depth of experience and talent in either of those realms, but all the more impressive when embodied in one founder. In my way of thinking, Sweet Chemistry is a reflection of Alec himself in that the products and brand marry scientific complexity and highly efficacious formulas with appealing and understandable storytelling.”
The brand is a vehicle for Batis’s dream product roster, and he’s sketched out a product roadmap for 10 years to bring its assortment to 42 products by introducing four a year. He envisions it spanning seven categories such as hydration, purification, nourishment, treatment and circulation. Lower-priced products that don’t have as high a load of active ingredients as current products will be in the mix, and the brand could tap future ingredient innovations from Xylyx.
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