Potion
Potion AI builds an AI-native software platform for beauty and personal care R&D teams, offering ingredient search, generative-AI formulation, and agentic compliance tools. It serves brands, contract manufacturers, and independent labs, and sells via a freemium Discovery tier and custom-priced enterprise subscriptions.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2019
- HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Potion does
Potion AI is a privately-held, venture-backed software company founded in 2019 and headquartered in San Francisco that builds AI-native tools for the beauty and personal care industry. Its platform addresses three interlocking R&D workflows: ingredient discovery, product formulation, and regulatory compliance. The company operates a freemium Discovery Platform that provides natural-language search across more than 80,000 raw materials, reverse-engineering of benchmark INCI lists into starting formulas, and basic compliance screening. Paid premium tiers add an Ingredient Vault that digitizes raw-material documents with 97% data-extraction accuracy across 50+ fields, a GenAI Formulation module featuring an industry-first AI co-pilot and customer-specific private models, and an Agentic AI Compliance module that autonomously screens against retailer standards (Sephora Clean, Ulta Conscious, Target Clean) and geographic restrictions.
Potion's revenue model combines a free self-serve tier with annual enterprise subscriptions priced via custom quotes and supplemented by private-cloud offerings for larger customers. Distribution blends product-led growth with a direct enterprise sales motion; the company reports 10,000+ R&D and compliance professionals and 3,000+ brands, contract manufacturers, and independent labs using the platform. Named enterprise users include Olaplex, THG Labs, RNA Corporation, Herrco Cosmetics, and Evolv R&D; in January 2026 Potion announced a multi-year strategic partnership with KDC/ONE, a major beauty contract manufacturer, following a competitive review, with rollout starting in North American labs. The company holds multiple globally granted and pending patents, is SOC 2 Type II certified, and is backed by Y Combinator, 776 Ventures, Offline Ventures, and strategic angels including Gwyneth Paltrow and Alexis Ohanian.
Potion firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Potion
- Legal name
- Potion AI, Inc.
- Website
- https://potion.ai
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2019
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Potion AI builds an AI-native software platform for beauty and personal care R&D teams, offering ingredient search, generative-AI formulation, and agentic compliance tools. It serves brands, contract manufacturers, and independent labs, and sells via a freemium Discovery tier and custom-priced enterprise subscriptions.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Potion industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Beauty R&D Software
- akta.pro primary industry
- AI Application Enablement Platforms (Copilot/Agent Frameworks, SDKs) (HDAEANAJ)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Agents & Autonomous Workflows (Tool Use, Planning, Multi-Agent) (HDAAACAF), Regulatory Readiness & Audit Automation (e.g., EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001) (HDAAAMAE)
Keywords
Where Potion is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Francisco
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Potion business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Freemium Discovery Platform: Free tier providing ingredient search, reverse engineering, retail product search, and compliance screening to attract users and drive conversion to paid tiers.
- Premium Enterprise Subscription: Paid tier including Ingredient Vault, GenAI formulation module, custom private AI models, regulatory & compliance feeds, report generation, export capabilities, and API access. Billed via annual contracts with custom pricing based on organization size and needs.
- Private Cloud Offerings: Enterprise-grade security and advanced features for large organizations requiring dedicated infrastructure and enhanced data protection.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Monthly | Free tier with core AI ingredient search and compliance features |
| Subscription | Annual | Enterprise tier with advanced AI formulation and compliance capabilities |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels4 records
Potion product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Potion AI provides an AI-native software platform for the beauty and personal care industry. It offers a free Discovery tier and premium enterprise modules covering ingredient discovery (natural language search across 80,000+ raw materials), AI-powered formulation generation via a generative AI co-pilot, automated regulatory compliance screening against retailer and geographic standards, and AI-driven document/data extraction for ingredient onboarding.
Product overview
Potion AI is an AI-native software platform for the beauty and personal care industry offering a modular suite of tools across ingredient management, formulation, and compliance. The platform architecture consists of a free Discovery Platform tier providing AI ingredient search, retail product search, reverse engineering (Deformulator), and compliance screening. Premium/paid offerings include Ingredient Vault for document management and data extraction, GenAI Formulation for AI-powered formula creation with co-pilot functionality, and Agentic AI Compliance for autonomous regulatory screening. All tiers leverage a proprietary formulation dataset spanning 80,000+ raw materials and millions of data points. The platform is SOC 2 Type II certified and globally patented.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Discovery Platform Free AI-powered search platform for beauty and personal care professionals, offering natural language ingredient search across 80,000+ raw materials, retail product search, reverse engineering via the Deformulator tool, and INCI compliance screening.
- Ingredient Vault AI-powered ingredient document management system that ingests, stores, and digitizes thousands of ingredient documents with 97% human-level data-extraction accuracy across 50+ fields per raw material. Saves 2-4 hours per raw material onboarded.
- GenAI Formulation Generative AI formulation workspace featuring an industry-first AI formulation co-pilot and private AI models uniquely trained on each customer's formulation portfolio, enabling optimized, compliant product formulas.
- Agentic AI Compliance Regulatory compliance platform using agentic AI to screen formulas against retailer standards (Sephora Clean, Target Clean, Ulta Conscious) and geographic restrictions (US FDA, Canada), with proactive suggestions, custom brand restriction support, and one-click compliance report generation.
Quantifiable outcome
- 2-4 hours saved per raw material onboarded through automated data entry
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use Potion
Customer profileNamed customers9 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Potion technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability10 records
Feature6 records
Potion partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
One partnership is on record.
- KDC/ONEflagshipMulti-year strategic partnership where KDC/ONE's labs and innovation hubs gain access to Potion AI's R&D platform. The collaboration covers ingredient discovery, formula generation, integrated regulatory compliance screening, and more. KDC/ONE selected Potion following a competitive review. Rollout begins with North American labs with plans to extend to additional sites and regions. Potion AI's technologies will help KDC/ONE streamline its full R&D lifecycle and better leverage decades of innovation expertise.
Scale indicators4 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Potion competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- AI Palette: AI Palette provides AI-driven product innovation and trend forecasting for CPG and beauty brands. Closely comparable to Potion in using AI to accelerate concept-to-product workflows for beauty and personal care, although with broader CPG reach and a trend-prediction rather than formulation focus.
- Revieve: Revieve is a beauty-technology platform offering AI-powered personalization, skin analysis, and product recommendation tools for beauty brands. Comparable to Potion as a vertical AI SaaS serving beauty brands, though focused on consumer-facing personalization and AR rather than R&D and formulation.
- Perfect Corp: Perfect Corp provides AI and AR beauty-tech solutions including virtual try-on, skin diagnostics, and product recommendation. A comparable vertical AI SaaS for the beauty industry, but predominantly consumer-experience focused rather than formulation R&D.
- Tulip Interfaces: Tulip is a frontline operations and manufacturing app platform with deployments in cosmetics and personal care manufacturing. Comparable as an enterprise software layer serving beauty manufacturers, with overlapping customer base (e.g., contract manufacturers) but a different functional focus on production rather than R&D.
- Datacor: Datacor provides ERP and process manufacturing software for the chemical, coatings, and formulation industries. Comparable as software serving formulation-driven businesses including personal care and specialty chemicals, though Datacor's stack is broader and not AI-native.
Broad incumbents
- BIOVIA (Dassault Systèmes): BIOVIA, part of Dassault Systèmes, offers enterprise scientific software including formulation, laboratory informatics, and regulatory tools. A broad incumbent in formulation R&D software with a much larger footprint than Potion, but with less vertical specialization in beauty/personal care.
- LabVantage Solutions: LabVantage is a laboratory information management system (LIMS) provider serving regulated industries including personal care and cosmetics. Comparable as enterprise software that supports beauty R&D labs, but a broad LIMS incumbent rather than a beauty-specific AI formulation platform.
- L'Oréal: L'Oréal is the world's largest beauty company with internal AI initiatives spanning R&D, formulation, and personalization. Represents a broad incumbent that could either become a customer of Potion or, with sufficient internal investment, a direct competitor for AI-driven beauty R&D tooling.
- Coty: Coty is a global beauty company with active AI and digital transformation initiatives across R&D and consumer experience. Comparable to L'Oréal as a broad incumbent in beauty that could adopt Potion or build competing in-house formulation AI capabilities.
Others
- Codexis: Codexis applies AI and directed evolution to enzyme and protein engineering for pharma and industrial biotech. Tangentially related as an AI-for-molecular-discovery company, but in a different vertical and not a direct competitor to Potion's cosmetic formulation platform.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Potion social profiles
Digital presencePotion compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance1 record
Potion financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Potion leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
Potion funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds1 record
Investors1 record
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Potion M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Potion
What does Potion do?
Potion AI provides an AI-native software platform for the beauty and personal care industry. It offers a free Discovery tier and premium enterprise modules covering ingredient discovery (natural language search across 80,000+ raw materials), AI-powered formulation generation via a generative AI co-pilot, automated regulatory compliance screening against retailer and geographic standards, and AI-driven document/data extraction for ingredient onboarding.
Is Potion a public or private company?
Potion is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Potion founded?
Potion was founded in 2019. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Potion based?
Potion is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.
How does Potion make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Freemium Discovery Platform is the primary driver. The others are premium Enterprise Subscription and private Cloud Offerings.
Who are Potion's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are AI Palette, Revieve, Perfect Corp, Tulip Interfaces and Datacor. Broad incumbents are BIOVIA (Dassault Systèmes), LabVantage Solutions, L'Oréal and Coty. Codexis is listed as an others.
Does Potion have an API?
Yes. Potion offers API access as part of its Premium Plan. The API enables users to output digitized ingredient data from the Ingredient Vault module. The API supports enterprise-grade access and is mentioned as an export capability within the platform.
What industry is Potion in?
Potion's product category is Beauty R&D Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAEANAJ, AI Application Enablement Platforms (Copilot/Agent Frameworks, SDKs), with a secondary code of HDAAACAF, Agents & Autonomous Workflows (Tool Use, Planning, Multi-Agent).