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Gravel AI
Techstars '22London, GB · Founded 2021 · 14 employees on LinkedIn · 5 known investors
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Gravel AI is an AI-powered beauty market intelligence platform that tracks ingredient trends, analyzes formulations, and benchmarks competitors across millions of beauty products. It serves companies across the beauty value chain—brands, suppliers, and contract manufacturers—offering interactive dashboards, monthly datasets, and REST API access to product, ingredient, and formulation data.
Also known as Gravel AI
Founders & leadership
Gravel AI was founded in 2021 by To Hong Chan.
Investors · 5
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Company profile
researched Sep 2026Gravel AI is a London, United Kingdom-based software company, founded in 2021, that operates a market analytics platform for the personal care and cosmetics ingredients sector. Its Chemical Consumption Intelligence Platform, launched in 2023, uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to give chemical manufacturers intelligence on where market opportunities exist for a given chemical, broken down by country, application and account, with the stated purpose of supporting sales strategy design and business development targeting.
Users log in with an email and password, enter the chemical ingredients and markets of interest, and the platform generates insights on emerging and existing consumption drawn from millions of data points. The company states that it collects data continuously and analyses it in real time, describing a reduction in the time required for a typical analyst market research project from roughly two weeks to about 30 minutes. The company is categorised in software development and reported 14 employees.
Founding story
Gravel AI was founded in 2021 by Karen Ho and To Hong Chan. Karen Ho has over ten years of experience in data science, including as Global Head of Product for a FTSE data analytics company, where she was responsible for launching data products into B2B industries. To Hong Chan has over ten years of experience in digital platform scaling and a materials science background from Oxford University. Drawing on both backgrounds, the founders identified chemicals manufacturing as an industry in which data, analytics and intelligence could produce efficiency and competitiveness gains, and began with the personal care segment.
Business model
Gravel AI sells access to a subscription-style intelligence platform for businesses in the personal care chemicals value chain, with clients logging in to run searches on their own ingredients and target markets.
Traction
The company reported over 50 demos booked at in-cosmetics global 2023 in Barcelona following the platform's launch, and a team of 14 employees.
Latest developments
In 2023 Gravel AI launched its Chemical Consumption Intelligence Platform for the personal care market and presented it at CosmeticBusiness 2023 in June.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Gravel AI focuses on the personal care segment of chemicals market analytics and has stated an intention to enter other segments.
The company positions the platform around speed and granularity: instant, account-level and geography-level consumption intelligence per chemical, compressing research work described as taking an analyst two weeks into approximately 30 minutes.
Technology
The platform is built on artificial intelligence and natural language processing. It continuously collects data and applies real-time analysis across millions of data points to generate consumption intelligence by chemical, country, application, brand and account.
Go-to-market
Gravel AI markets through industry trade events, running live platform demonstrations. It reported over 50 demos booked at in-cosmetics global 2023 in Barcelona and exhibited in the Innovation Corner at CosmeticBusiness 2023 in Leipzig on 14-15 June 2023, in hall 4, stand E04.2.
Chemical and ingredient manufacturers and distributors serving the personal care and cosmetics market, including start-ups bringing green and innovative ingredients to market, manufacturers of premium active ingredients, manufacturers expanding into new geographies or applications, and those seeking to retain or upsell existing accounts. Business development and sales teams are the primary users.
Geography
Headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with reported platform interest from chemicals manufacturers and distributors in the United States, the United Kingdom and Asia Pacific, and marketing activity in Europe. Investors on record are based in the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States.
History
Founded in 2021, Gravel AI built a market analytics platform for personal care chemicals, launched its Chemical Consumption Intelligence Platform in 2023, raised backing from five early-stage and angel investors between March and June 2023, and exhibited at industry trade shows in Barcelona and Leipzig in 2023.
Compiled by commissioned research from 5 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Related companies · 1
Companies working in the same space as Gravel AI.
Timeline · 2
launches, deals, and filingsGravel AI presented live demonstrations of its platform in the Innovation Corner at CosmeticBusiness on 14-15 June 2023, in hall 4, stand E04.2.
Gravel AI launched an AI- and NLP-based Chemical Consumption Intelligence Platform giving chemical manufacturers consumption intelligence per chemical, country, application and account for the personal care market.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
Legal entities · 1
corporate structureCompanies House · registry record
View on Companies House ↗- Registered name
- GRAVEL AI LTD
- Company number
- 14209196
- Status
- Active
- Company type
- Private limited company
- Incorporated
- 1 Jul 2022
- Registered office
- 3rd Floor, 86-90 Paul Street, London, EC2A 4NE
- Nature of business (SIC)
- 62012 — Business and domestic software development
- Accounts
- last made up to 31 Jul 2025 · next due 30 Apr 2027
- Confirmation statement
- last made up to 30 Jun 2026 · next due 14 Jul 2027
Current officers · 3
- To Hong Chan — director, appointed 1 Jul 2022
- Kwan Yu Karen Ho — director, appointed 1 Jul 2022
- Richard Pieters — director, appointed 17 Nov 2023
Source: Companies House public register · retrieved 3 Aug 2026. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
▸Research sources · 5
primary sources listed
- Gravel AI — investors & funding | gritt.iogritt.io · web
5 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Gravel AI do?
- Gravel AI is a London-based analytics platform giving personal care chemical and ingredient suppliers market intelligence.
- Who founded Gravel AI?
- Gravel AI was founded by To Hong Chan in 2021.
- Who are Gravel AI's investors?
- Gravel AI's investors include Joyance Partners, Kicker Ventures, Octopus Ventures, Techstars, Supernode Ventures.
- Where is Gravel AI headquartered?
- Gravel AI is headquartered in London, GB.