Oil does not mix with water, hence the need for solubilisers
This collaboration illustrates how startup agility and industrial expertise can work together to accelerate innovation in speciality chemicals. By partnering with Nextmol, Indovinya, the global speciality chemical and surfactants division of Indorama Ventures, is exploring how digital tools can help transform formulation development into a faster, more predictive and scalable innovation process.
Indorama Ventures is a global chemicals company with operations across multiple regions and a broad portfolio serving essential industries worldwide. Within the group, Indovinya is the business segment focused on speciality chemicals and surfactants, developing ingredients used in everyday applications across home care, personal care, agriculture and industrial solutions. With a strong industrial and R&D footprint in Brazil, Indovinya plays an important role in connecting global innovation capabilities with local formulation expertise and market needs.
Its ingredients are used in a wide range of everyday applications, from household cleaning to personal care products such as shampoos, body washes and liquid soaps. With strong formulation know-how, industrial capabilities and market understanding, Indovinya helps bring innovation closer to real-world application.
On this note, the company continues to explore and develop ingredients that support the solubilisation and stabilisation of the oily components in personal care products.
Take for instance a shampoo with an orange fragrance.
The fragrances are usually made by a mixture of essential oils or oily components such as perfume oils. However, oils do not naturally mix with water.
This means that if you simply pour oily ingredients or fragrances into a water-based formulation, the formula can quickly become unstable: the oily part may separate and float to the surface.
This is where fragrance solubilisers come in.
A fragrance solubiliser is an ingredient that helps disperse oily fragrances evenly throughout a water-based product, ensuring the formula remains homogeneous from the factory to the consumer’s bathroom shelf.
Today, as with most chemical ingredients, the development of these fragrance solubilisers still largely relies on laboratory experiments and trial and error.
Researchers may need to test dozens or even hundreds of chemical combinations before reaching a satisfying one.
The major challenge is therefore predicting in advance which molecular structures are most likely to work.
Without reliable predictive tools, researchers must continue testing large numbers of formulas, which slows innovation cycles and considerably increases development costs.
This is precisely the type of challenge where collaboration with deep-tech startups can unlock new value: combining scientific innovation with industrial insight to reduce uncertainty, speed up development and expand sustainable formulation possibilities.
Testing hundreds of fragrance formulations in hours instead of months
Spanish startup Nextmol has developed a computational chemistry platform that helps chemical companies predict how ingredients will behave before physically testing them in the laboratory.
For Indovinya, this means researchers can digitally evaluate whether:
- The fragrance will remain evenly dispersed,
- The formula is likely to stay transparent or become cloudy,
- Ingredients may separate over time,
Another major capability of the platform is virtual screening.
Researchers can digitally test and compare very large numbers of potential molecules in a fraction of the time required for physical experimentation.
The system also helps optimise molecular structures by identifying which chemical modifications are most likely to improve stability, performance, sustainability, or manufacturing feasibility.
Overall, for Indovinya, this creates several advantages:
- Faster identification of high-performing fragrance solubilisers,
- Fewer costly and time-consuming laboratory experiments,
- A more scalable and data-driven approach to identifying sustainable formulation alternatives earlier in the development process.
Ultimately, the collaboration enables Indovinya to move towards a more predictive, data-driven approach to chemical formulation development.
The EU-LAC Digital Accelerator helps the partnership turn computational chemistry into a scalable industrial solution
- Service n°1: PoC design & Prototyping
The “PoC design & Prototyping” service helps Indovinya and Nextmol structure a real-world validation process for the startup’s computational chemistry platform.
The service helped define how Nextmol’s virtual molecular simulations would be compared against physical laboratory tests to measure whether the platform can reliably predict fragrance stability, transparency, and solubilization performance.
- Service n°2: Open innovation bootcamp
The bootcamp helps Indovinya and Nextmol align their objectives, expectations, and ways of working before scaling their collaboration.
The bootcamp provides guidance on corporate-startup collaboration, helping both partners define a shared value proposition, clarify roles and responsibilities, and establish a roadmap for the proof of concept.
- Service n°3: Access to funding
The service supports the startup in positioning its technology within public innovation programmes focused on sustainable chemistry and industrial digitalisation.
By accessing public funding and mentoring, Nextmol can accelerate technology development, expand validation activities, and reduce the financial risk associated with scaling deep-tech industrial solutions internationally.
Expected results: Developing a molecular simulation standard in the development of personal care products…and beyond
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🧴INDOVINYA |
⚛️NEXTMOL |
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