Roka Furadada: more than 8 million euros for her smart sunscreens

BarcelonaJudit Camargo has always been concerned with health, even when she thinks about cosmetics. A graduate in chemistry from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), she has dedicated her entire career to the pharmaceutical sector, working for companies such as Coprima, Gelos, and Ferrer, until in 2019 she decided to launch Roka Furadada, a start-up which sums up "everything" that interests him. "Protecting health, but doing so with ingredients that have less impact on the environment," he explains from the offices of this startup in Nou Barris. Almost six years later, Camargo's commitment is reaffirmed with the new €2.3 million funding round it has just closed to finance its expansion. With this figure, the resources raised throughout its history exceed €8 million.

The operation, led by the Madrid-based fund O Financial Club (OFC) and with the participation of other individual investors and business angels As Women Angels for Steam (WA4Steam), it will serve to complete the development of Roka Furadada's existing product pipeline and launch new ones. The main thing the company has created deeptech It's an ingredient for making sunscreens smart. "It's a molecule that absorbs radiation, but it doesn't activate until there's sun, and the more sun there is, the more it protects you. It's more efficient: it releases protection based on when you need it, not when you get sunburned. It's like taking an extended-release paracetamol, which gradually releases the active ingredient."

This is a shift from traditional sunscreens to achieve better use, because the incidence of skin cancer continues to rise. With 100,000 deaths worldwide each year, one in three cancers is skin cancer. And it is estimated that there will be 2.5 million new cases annually between now and 2040. Spending more time outdoors, longer vacations, and regular exercise, as well as the aging population and increased diagnosis, explain this trend. Society is more aware of the need to apply sunscreen—all year round, not just in summer—but it's not enough. "It's difficult to get people to apply sunscreen every two hours, which reduces the protective effect. With our product, protection is not only maintained but actually increased when radiation is higher," Camargo points out. He then reminds us that 85% of skin cancers can be prevented with sunscreen, but also with hats and spending more time in the shade.

The active ingredient had been started by Ferrer, in collaboration with the Sarrià Chemical Institute (IQS). Camargo was working to increase the turnover of the dermocosmetics plant in Esplugues de Llobregat and went from trade fair to trade fair to sell its products, as well as those under investigation, including the ingredient to make sunscreens smarter. He detected interest from companies in the cosmetics sector, but the Catalan pharmaceutical company underwent a restructuring process and ended up abandoning this line of research, which was still in its very early stages. It was then that was born Roka Furadada, to whom Ferrer transferred the technology in early 2020 in exchange for a royalty on sales. The startup's first product was launched in 2023 and has begun to be marketed through brands such as Nuraderm, based in Rubí, Catalonia.

But Camargo's obsessions don't end with preventing and improving health; he's also passionate about the circular economy, as exemplified by his research during a postgraduate degree in bioengineering at the UAB (Autonomous University of Barcelona) on how to utilize astronauts' feces and urine to generate food and water in space. This underlying interest led him to focus on lignin, one of the components of trees, along with cellulose. Lignin is a residue that is usually burned when the paper industry processes trees. Roka Furadada uses it in cosmetic formulations due to its antioxidant and antimicrobial properties.

This is how Sotabosc and Canigó were born, the new products launched by the company in 2024 and 2025, respectively, developed entirely in their laboratories in Bellaterra, which are constantly becoming too small. The first product is designed for acne-prone skin, primarily for teenagers, but also for use during periods of hormonal changes. The second product, however, is designed for hair with a sensitive scalp, to reduce dandruff and frizz, and improve density. Following the research, the manufacturing of the active ingredients is outsourced to plants located in Spain and India. For the coming years, they are working on a product for atopic dermatitis, in addition to an evolution of their active ingredient for sunscreens. With the funds raised in this round, the plan is to launch a new product every year until 2029, as well as gain a stronger international presence.

To reach a turnover of 2 million euros

With around twenty clients, Roka Furadada sells to Spain and other countries, including France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland, the United States, Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, and Japan. The buyers of its cosmetic ingredients are manufacturers of creams and shampoos, who incorporate them into their formulations.

The company began generating revenue in 2024, with half a million euros. Last year it closed with revenues of almost one million euros, and the forecast is to reach two million euros this year. This growth trajectory aims to overcome losses by 2027.

The 2.3 million euro funding round closed this week is the third in its history. The first was for 160,000 euros in 2019, followed by one of 1.6 million euros in 2021, bringing the total to nearly 4 million euros raised from private funds. Furthermore, it has received public aid It was funded with €4.5 million from institutions such as Enisa, the Centre for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI), and the European Innovation Council (EIC). It currently has a staff of around 20 employees.