Bengaluru Startup Makes Beauty Ingredient Without Bacteria

Indian beauty brands might soon fill their serums and moisturizers with ingredients made right at home, thanks to a Bengaluru startup that ditched the traditional recipe.

Cellarim Labs has cracked the code on making hyaluronic acid without fermenting bacteria. The ingredient shows up in most face creams because it holds over a thousand times its weight in water, giving skin that dewy, hydrated look.

Founded in 2023 by Nisa Mehreen and Hitesh Rafalia, the company started small with a single bioreactor in a Bengaluru laboratory. Two years later, they just raised 6 crore rupees to scale up production of NeuHyal, their hyaluronic acid range.

The magic happens in what they call cell-free biomanufacturing. Instead of growing bacteria in giant tanks and then separating out the useful molecule, Cellarim uses enzymes directly to transform bio-waste into the finished product.

Think of it like baking bread without yeast. The process is faster, cleaner, and skips the messy purification step that makes traditional methods expensive.

The company says their approach uses 90% less water and produces 95% fewer emissions than chemical synthesis. They claim it costs 80% less than precision fermentation, though these figures come from internal testing.

NeuHyal comes in molecular weights ranging from 10 to 5,000 kilodaltons, a 500-fold difference. Smaller molecules sink into skin for deep hydration while larger ones create a protective layer on top, giving formulators real choice instead of settling for whatever suppliers have in stock.

Right now, Indian beauty brands import most of their hyaluronic acid from abroad. That means dealing with shipping delays, inconsistent batches, and prices that swing with global supply chains.

The Ripple Effect

Cellarim sells to other businesses rather than consumers directly. Their ingredients will show up in products under different brand names, quietly making the supply chain more reliable for dozens of beauty companies.

The seed funding came from 3i Partners and Venture Catalysts, with backing from Momentum Capital and angel investors. The team is building what they call an AI-driven biofoundry where brands can bring target molecules for custom design and production.

India's first cell-free biomanufacturing platform for cosmetics is now moving from laboratory experiments to a pilot production facility. One small team in Bengaluru just gave the country's beauty industry a reason to look inward instead of overseas.