Douglas wants to bring start-up Tomorrowlabs to other countries

The start-up already has a permanent place on the shelves of Douglas in the German market. Now Tomorrowlabs not only wants to penetrate further into the European market, but also conquer other continents.

"Ageing becomes curable" - this is not only the title of Nina Ruge's upcoming book, but also the promise of the Austrian start-up Tomorrowlabs, in which Ruge is investing. Fittingly, the book's co-author is founder Dominik Duscher, who wants to conquer the market with anti-ageing products. Since the beginning of 2020, his start-up has been selling its own products exclusively in the stores of the Douglas perfumery chain. The cooperation with Douglas boss Tina Müller came about through Ruge's husband: Wolfgang Reitzle, Chief Executive Officer at Continental and former Linde CEO.

Ruge and Reitzle each hold a nine percent stake in the start-up, which got off to a successful start on the market last year despite having closed stores. There are now plans to establish Tomorrowlabs products with Douglas in ten other European countries. The Austrians also want to gain a foothold in the USA and Asia.

The market for anti-ageing products is huge and could grow to 66 billion dollars by 2023 according to experts. Duscher founded Tomorrowlabs together with Dominik Thor. The idea: the older a person gets, the less active and efficient the protein Hypoxia Inducible Factor (HIF), which is crucial for cell renewal, becomes. Tomorrowlabs has developed the enzyme HSF, which is designed to protect the HIF and thus enable cells to continue renewing themselves. The promise: fewer wrinkles, rejuvenated hair structure.