033 - What I'm Reading: Week of March 4th
👋 Hello everyone.
🔗 Links in this newsletter route back to my blog or directly to the original content.
⭐️ = What excites me most this week.
💭 A report in Science exposes the man who took down the supplements industry in the 2010s as a fraud, it is a fascinating read, and unfortunately is a pattern that keeps coming up time & time again. How did the researcher get caught? He literally copy & pasted the same figures on-repeat in peer reviewed scientific journals. If you are familiar with the story of Jan Hendrik Schön this should sound very familiar, if not this YouTube series is fantastic.
This week: a look at the economics of raising a child in China, a microbiome testing service, Alibaba’s Taocaicai network, the migration of wearables away from the wrist, a breakthrough in CRISPR therapies, the friction between consumer love of telemedicine and physician’s differing views, and what is driving the rise of China’s luxury brands.
🗞 NEWS & PRODUCTS
Gartner predicts 25% of people will spend at least one hour per day in the metaverse by 2026, this includes activities like shopping, socializing, working, education, and work.
🇮🇳 India’s Lights Out Studio, the product design agency behind many of India’s most successful DTC brands, launched a venture fund focusing on pre-seed Angel investments in DTC startups.
🇨🇳 👶 An article in SupChina, provides a summary in English of the Liang Jianzhang: China's Fertility Cost Report 2022, and shows raising a child in urban China costs more than in Japan or the U.S.
ICYMI: The celebrity brand news you did not ask for:
Gwen Stefani launched a make-up line called GXVE Beauty it will be at Sephora.
Idris Elba and his wife Sabrina are launching a wellness brand S’ABLE LABS. The brand will be launching a skincare line this summer: “with sustainable ingredients from Arica to address concerns from hyperpigmentation to inflammation”
Cay Skin, a sun care brand from model Winnie Harlow, offers everyday sun care, with skincare actives.
🧴 Skin:
⭐️ 🦠 Sequential Bio, is a new B2B service from Sequential Skin, offering in-vivo microbiome testing for skin, hair, oral, and intimate area to determine the impact of products on the microbiome. The service provides claims testing and a seal indicating products were tested in-vivo and ‘maintains the microbiome’.
Reduit (the brand known for their hair & skin micro-mists, similar to Droplette) just closed a Kickstarter for a new skincare device BOOST, which is meant to enhance your current skincare routine.
This connected device is quite similar to Foreo’s UFO (the founder of Reduit is the former CEO of Foreo). The device uses an app to identify your skin goals, scan your current products (lots of data), and use LED plus magnets to increase the efficacy of your current skincare routine.
Rewilding in skincare, restoring microbial diversity.
S’eau Prima, a modern premium skincare brand, its first product is a hypochlorous acid spray for better product absorption.
Silex Skin a skincare line developed by a corporate pilot to protect from the elements.
Friendly skincare, a Vancouver based brand developed by makeup artist Pippa Dawson, is developing formulas that are friendly to skin, and preaching kindness through its brand proposition.
👩🦱 Hair:
Arkive is a new haircare from hair stylist Adam Reed, focusing on head care, a term referring to both physical and mental health.
💊 Supplements:
⭐️ 🤯 Science reports on the incredible story of Steven Newmaster, a researcher best known for his work using DNA barcoding to take down the supplement industry, is now being exposed for data manipulation, plagiarism, and fabrication. The story is incredible.
Deeps is launching a scientifically formulated sleep patch.
🛍 Retail:🇨🇳 How Alibaba’s Taocaicai network is driving e-commerce accessibility in lower tier cities through an M2C model.
Walmart is launching Walmart Start, a beauty accelerator, to attract new brands. This follows years after Target launched its successful and established accelerator program, which spans across categories.
👩🔬 Femtech:
XAngVC maps the Femtech space in Europe and looks at areas of opportunity.
A deep dive into the Asian Femtech space by Nikkei Asia.
A look at six Asian female founded femtech startups across PCOS, menopause, fertility, and sexual health.
🩺 Digital Health: Wearables, Smart Devices, and More...⭐️ ⌚️ Morning Brew discusses how and why wearables are shifting beyond the wrist.
Yanko Design X Cambridge Consultants designed a concept for a wearable personal injector, intended for those with chronic diseases.
Amazon adds Teledoc services to Alexa.
♻️ Sustainable Design:Phytolon, an Israeli natural food coloring startup, is partnering with Gingko Bioworks to develop next-gen vibrant natural food coloring from yeast fermentation.
💸 M&A, IPOs, SPACs...:
Perfect Corp., known for its AR try one capabilities, is said to be going public via a SPAC valued at $1B.
Kimberly Clark took a majority stake in Thinx, the period proof undergarment company. Kimberly Clark is the parent company to Kotex.
Ro acquired Dadi, the sperm banking startup, in a $100M deal. Earlier in 2021, Ro acquired the female health fertility startup, Modern Fertility.
This acquisition, means Ro will own both male and female fertility services, further differentiating it from Hims/Hers and the Thirty Madison group of brands.
🔬RESEARCH
⭐️ CRISPR gene editing treatment is one of the most anticipated new technologies, researchers provided an update on the first gene editing therapy injection for the genetic disorder TTR. The results after 1-year of receiving the treatment are positive, where the gene responsible for producing a toxic protein, reduced production by 93% after treatment.
P&G filed an international patent for waterless haircare solution. The pods are made from a fibrous material and filled with prills/pellets. This is quite similar to P&G’s brand Gemz.
🧐 REPORTS
⭐️ 🧑⚕️ McKinsey - Consumers Love Telehealth, Physicians are Not So Sure.
⭐️ 🇨🇳 Daxue China - China Chic: The Emergence of Luxury Brands. This report examines views on luxury brands in China, the increasing importance Guochua for Gen Z, and four hypotheses for how Chinese luxury brands can grow.
🇨🇳 💻 ChinaSkinny - China’s Elderly Behavior Online 2021 - a compilation of data looking at the preferred apps, brands, amount per transaction, user growth and more.
♀ Apple Women’s Health Study - PCOS. Apple announced a partnership with Harvard, and NIH in 2019 resulting in a long-term study to collect data on Apple Watches to better understand women’s health. The more recent data focuses on a cohort of 30,000+ women to understand prevalence of PCOS and health implications.
Healthy Handwashing Survey 2021: overall frequency has reduced since the peak of the pandemic.
💸 Investing:CB Insights: State of CVC 2021
CB Insights: The Future According to Tiger Global.
💡Enjoy,
-Anne