Germany's Beiersdorf launches start-up support program in China

German consumer goods company Beiersdorf said on Thursday that it will expand its NX NIVEA Accelerator start-up support program to China via its innovation center in Shanghai.

Having reviewed more than 100 candidate startups, Beiersdorf selected the first five participating beauty startups in the areas of indie brands, beauty technology, personalization and platform business models with a high degree of digitalization.

"Our goal is to become the leading beauty accelerator in Asia by 2022," said Zhengrong Liu, member of the Executive Board of Beiersdorf for China and Northeast Asia, in a statement.

Through their strategic partnership with Beiersdorf, the selected start-ups would benefit for six months from the company's global network and would also receive access to laboratories as well as intensive support and training.

Beiersdorf's innovation center in Shanghai, the company's second largest research center worldwide, would also support the start-ups with research and development, marketing, and office space.

The German company has also entered into a partnership with China's leading e-commerce platform Tmall from the Alibaba Group to co-incubate Chinese startups.

The NX NIVEA Accelerator program was already launched in South Korea in June 2019.