Virtue Labs, LLC

Who owns Virtue Labs? Virtue Labs is a private, venture-backed company. Its largest outside investor is Combe Incorporated; founders Melisse Shaban and Luke Burnett retain ownership, and Jose Palacios has been CEO since 2023.

Is Virtue Labs publicly traded? No. The company is privately held and has raised approximately $98 million in private funding.

What is Alpha Keratin 60ku? It is a whole human keratin protein, derived from ethically sourced human hair, that Virtue uses in all its products. The company claims it binds to damaged hair and repairs it because hair recognizes the protein as identical to its own.

Where is Virtue Labs located? Raleigh, North Carolina, with the keratin technology originating from research in Winston-Salem.

Dr. Luke Burnett, a retired Army colonel and biotechnology scientist, developed the keratin extraction method through regenerative medicine work in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The keratin technology, originally aimed at tissue repair, showed an ability to bind to and repair human hair.

Melisse Shaban, a beauty industry veteran who had led brands at companies including Frederic Fekkai, partnered with Burnett to commercialize the discovery. Virtue Labs formed in 2014 in Raleigh and spent several years developing formulations before launching its first retail products in 2017.

The brand grew steadily through Sephora and salon distribution, raising capital in stages. Just for Men parent Combe took a stake in 2020 and increased it in May 2023, the same period Virtue brought in Jose Palacios, a veteran of Procter and Gamble, Coty, and Google, as CEO. A further $8.4 million raise in September 2023 brought disclosed funding to roughly $98 million. By 2026 the brand was a fixture on prestige hair care lists and a named competitor to Olaplex and K18 in bond repair.

The company says its keratin is sourced from ethically collected human hair and markets cruelty-free positioning. It holds no major third-party sustainability certifications. Its human-hair-derived ingredient has drawn occasional consumer questions, which the company answers with its ethical-sourcing statement.