Adir Abergel (Creative Director), Jennifer Garner, and Melisse Shaban (Founder & CEO). Photo Credit: Abby Ross
by WRAL TechWire June 3, 2021 .
RALEIGH – Entrepreneur Melisse Shaban, the CEO and founder of Raleigh-based biotech haircare company Virtue Labs, has been named to the inaugural Forbes 50 Over 50 List, which celebrates women more than 50 years old making significant, extraordinary contributions to all parts of society.
Shaban founded the company after learning about a breakthrough technology developed as a way to use regenerative medicine to treat injuries from battlefield explosions, according to reporting from Lisa Roberts in Walter Magazine. The inventor of that technology, retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Luke Burnett worked at the Winston-Salem biotechnology company, KeraNetics, at the time, and told Shaban that in addition to regenerating tissue, bone, and muscle, it might be able to be used to repair hair.
RALEIGH – Virtue Labs, the Raleigh biotechnology startup that won top honors in the 2019 Best of What’s New Awards from Pop Science for its innovative product Virtue ColorKick,on Monday product line to help an estimated 30 million women who are today suffering from female hair loss.
The biotech company is focusing on scalp fertility and hair fiber survival.
Virtue Labs, with support from actress Jennifer Garner who grew up with the company’s creative director, Adir Abergel, and who noted she trusts Abergel’s decisions with everything hair related in a December 2019 article published on WRAL TechWire. It closed a $28.6 million in equity from 26 investors in November 2020.