The $1.8 trillion global wellness market, coupled with advancements in biometric tracking and health technology, has investors banking on the future of wellness.

Renowned cyclist and endurance athlete Lance Armstrong’s Next Ventures is the latest VC fund to get in on the wellness craze, targeting $100 million — its first fund in almost five years — to invest in whole-person health, preventive care and diagnostics.

Next Ventures managing partner Julian Eison, was forthright:

“We said, hey, this whole consumerization of health is omnipresent,” Eison told PitchBook, which reported on Next Ventures’ plans to write pre-seed, seed and Series A checks with an average check size of $2 million. 

It’s a viewpoint shared by other leading investors and experts.

As Jon Canarick of North Castle Partners, Mark Grabowski of Snapdragon Capital Partners and Lance Dietz of KB Partners shared during Athletech News’ DISRUPT 2023 video series, there is an overall sense of optimism surrounding the health, fitness and wellness markets. 

“I think almost universally there’s growth in consumer expenditure in health and wellness across multiple categories,” Grabowski said, noting that the industry as a whole is on an “upward trajectory.” 

Wearables Track More Than Just Fitness

He also indicated that health and fitness trackers have even more runway, especially with consumers embracing preventive wellness practices. Advancing technology also means that wearables no longer cater to elite athletes or weekend warriors. Instead, consumers of all ages and in any health condition can track their health metrics, widening the available consumer market.

“When you think of everything from blood testing to stool samples, there you’re actually addressing some different issues,” Grabowski pointed out. “It’s not about, ‘Am I optimizing my workout performance?’ It’s about allergies, chronic issues, immune responses and other things that people are dealing with.” 

Investors are taking note, with Ultrahuman’s multi-device ecosystem the latest funding recipient. The company just secured $35 million in a Series B to advance its health monitoring endeavors, which include a smart ring, a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), a ‘Blood Vision’ system and an upcoming home health device that assesses environmental impacts on well-being. 

Next Ventures’ portfolio touts some notable health and wellness names, including smart ring brand Oura, AI wearable company Humane and Genopets, a move-to-earn game. The VC fund also invested in Utah-based Amp Human in 2019, maker of PR Lotion, which merged with Momentous, a ‘human performance” supplement brand.

As for Oura, the smart ring maker is expected to enter a “health-focused” chapter, having recently welcomed an executive from the Apple Health team and signing a deal to make its wearable device FSA/HSA eligible. 

Wellness CPGs Gain Steam, Too

Tech may always be a hot area for its jaw-dropping capabilities that seem to advance each week, but good old consumer packaged goods have been receiving the attention of investors, too — especially those in the wellness categories. 

Even major retailers like Target are banking on the wellness wave, introducing over 1,000 health-supporting products across all verticals. For good reason, too: consumers have not only become more health-conscious, but GLP-1 users have redirected their spending away from unhealthy items and toward wellness purchases.

Bloom Nutrition, a supplement brand in the greens and superfoods category recently scored a major investment from C4 maker Nutrabolt. 

Health and wellness guru/A-lister Gwyneth Paltrow, no stranger to all things green juice and longevity-supporting, is also eyeing the power of products with wide appeal. The goop founder has turned feeling good into a profitable brand, catering to the masses with a new line of budget-friendly wellness and beauty products, a departure from goop’s higher-priced items. 

Paltrow’s Los Angeles-based VC firm, Kinship Ventures, has reportedly sought to raise $75 million for its debut fund, eyeing early-stage consumer goods and tech companies.

Over on the East Coast, Humble Growth, a N.Y.-based growth equity firm launched by an all-star team that includes RxBar founder Peter Rahal, secured over $312 million for its debut. Earlier this year, Humble Growth acquired a significant minority stake in Momentous in a deal worth $32 million.

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Humble Growth, a consumer-focused investment firm concentrating on disruptive wellness brands in the food, beverage, health, beauty, vitamins, supplements and apparel space, has acquired a significant minority stake in Momentous, a fast-growing human performance and nutrition company. The deal is worth $32 million, Athletech News has learned.

The strategic partnership sees Momentous co-founders Jeff Byers and Erica Good continuing to lead the company together as CEO and president, respectively. Last year, the Park City, Utah-based brand tripled its revenue from 2022 and projects to double its revenue again this year. 

Next up, Momentous plans to open a new Los Angeles-based headquarters, grow its staff and advance the customer experience of its DTC model.

The human performance brand recently released an updated version of its website, allowing consumers to explore products based on their desired “pillar of performance” — such as cognitive function, sleep, athletic performance, foundational health and hormone support.

The timing is ideal, as Americans are eagerly spending hard-earned dollars on vitamins and supplements, especially those in the performance, recovery and mood genres.

NY-based Humble Growth, led by RxBar co-founder Peter Rahal, debuted a $312 million fund last fall, with a who’s who list of investors including Nestlé Health Science, Verlinvest, BodyArmor co-founder Mike Repole, Stonyfield Farm founder and CEO Gary Hirshberg, IT Cosmetics co-founder Paulo Lima and Ainsworth Pet Nutrition founder Sean Lang.

Not Your Traditional Supplement Brand

Aligned with Humble Growth’s mission to partner with entrepreneurs and brands promoting health and wellness, Momentous was launched in 2018 to offer high-quality, science-backed products (seven of which tout the Informed-Sport certification) to meet the needs of elite performers.

Human performance is an area that Byers knows well as a former NFL offensive lineman. After retiring from the NFL, the Momentous CEO became aware of a major gap in the supplement space. He first launched Amp Human, creating the brand’s popular PR Lotion product before acquiring the Momentous brand in 2021 and merging it into the company.

Instead of marketing gimmicks, Byers’ approach to supplements is to rewrite the current industry script with an expert approach, tapping the talent of Dr. Andrew Huberman, Dr. Andy Galpin and other health and wellness practitioners. 

“Supplements to me have a weird connotation, so our goal is to build the ‘anti-supplement supplement company,'” he told ATN in an exclusive interview last year. “We want to be your trusted partner in life optimization.”

As part of being a trusted partner, Momentous is listening — and delivering. With its finger on the pulse of consumer desires, the company will launch a pre-workout later this year that has been in development for years and includes Department of Defense research funding.

“Our goal was to develop a pre-workout formula that delivers cognitive and physical performance benefits but without synthetic sources of caffeine or stimulants, and we’re excited to bring this product to our customers who have been asking for it,” Byers said.

The brand also plans to introduce additional products that are geared toward the needs of women.

From the NFL to Consumers

Passionate about targeting “mindset” consumers who seek quality products to optimize their health and performance, Byers’ position has led Momentous to secure nearly 200 pro and college sports teams partnerships, including a deal to create a custom recovery product for an NFL team, along with millions worth of innovation contracts with the Department of Defense.

The brand has also attracted pro athlete shareholders such as NFL Pro Bowlers Luke Kuechly, Kyle Rudolph, and Ndamukong Suh, former professional skateboarder Rob Dyrdek, Ironman Champion Lucy Charles-Barclay and more. 

Byers remarked that joining with Humble Growth on the heels of exponentially growing Momentous will mean an upward trajectory for the brand, which has also earned the title of Official Supplements and Sports Nutrition Partner of CrossFit and the CrossFit Games.

“We were immediately drawn to Humble Growth and its partners’ exceptional track record in successfully operating and scaling nutrition and supplement companies,” Byers said. “Their lived experience positions them as invaluable thought partners during our continued growth, and I’m confident that Humble Growth’s passion and expertise for consumer products in this space is going to usher us into an exciting new chapter.”

This article has been updated.

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Supplement companies often get a bad rap, commonly accused of peddling needless and potentially unsafe products backed by questionable science, all at high mark-ups. 

Momentous, an NSF-certified nutrition and supplement brand based in Park City, Utah, is out to change that perception by giving consumers access to high-quality products formulated by experts and designed with specific lifestyle and performance goals in mind.

Led by CEO Jeff Byers, a former NFL offensive lineman turned wellness executive who co-founded Amp Human, Momentous has become one of the industry’s smashing success stories, with revenue growth exceeding 1,000% since the company merged with Amp in 2021. Byers’ vision for Momentous is clear: to democratize high performance by bringing the same health and wellness tools he had access to as a pro athlete to everyday consumers. 

The company’s product line includes staples like Omega-3s, whey protein and creatine monohydrate, but also more targeted supplements like sleep aids, cognitive and athletic performance boosters, and hormone optimizers. Specific collections are also available, including supplement packages curated by experts like Dr. Andrew Huberman.

Along with a booming direct-to-consumer business, Momentous has nearly 200 partnerships with pro and college sports teams in the U.S. and has secured $4.5 million worth of innovation contracts with the Department of Defense to focus on human performance for service members.

Byers spoke with Athletech News about his transition from NFL lineman to wellness CEO, what makes Momentous stand out from other supplement companies, and where he sees the health and wellness market heading over the coming years and decades.

Athletech News: Can you tell us about your background and what led you to create Amp Human?

Jeff Byers: As a former professional athlete, I was really passionate about optimization and performance. When I retired from the NFL, I noticed there was a huge black hole in this space. You go from having access to great practitioners, experts and thought leaders in the space, and being given really curated products geared towards your goals, to this big black hole as an average consumer. So I saw a gap (in the market) to bring together high-quality products with the right practitioners and experts. 

After I decided I wasn’t going to stay in sports, I initially jumped into finance and realized it wasn’t for me, not by a long shot. I joined an early-stage biotech company because they had this technology we thought could be used in sports. That was kind of the genesis of what would become Amp Human and our product, PR Lotion. I thought, “What if we could roll that out to the consumer and build a leading high-performance company to fill this gap? ” So around five years ago, my co-founder Erica Good and I started Amp Human. 

Around two years ago, we bought the Momentous brand and merged into the company. The idea was that nutrition and supplements are such a cornerstone to optimization and health, but there’s still this very big black hole. Our vision is to democratize high performance. We do that through products, knowledge and access.

ATN: What separates Momentous from run-of-the-mill supplement companies?

JB: Supplements to me have a weird connotation, so our goal is to build the “anti-supplement supplement company.” It’s not, “Here are 500 products, go figure out what’s right for you.” Or, “Here’s some cool Fruity Pebbles-flavored protein,” because that’s really where the (supplement) market sits today. We want to be your trusted partner in life optimization.

I believe experts in optimization and wellness don’t live inside businesses, I believe they’re out there doing incredible things at the university level, in pro and college sports, or at the Department of Defense. So if we really want to create a different company, let’s not do it how it’s always been done. Let’s use the external resources – experts and practitioners – and build products around them.

ATN: How do you put that brand philosophy into action?

JB: We have three core pillars that we think are really important. Number one is experts. We align with experts, people like Dr. Andrew Huberman and Dr. Andy Galpin, and we also have this incredible performance engineer board that’s made up of top practitioners in pro and college sports. So it’s this expert-driven approach where we work with the best and ideate with the best.

Number two is our endless commitment to product. It’s everything from how we think about sourcing to what products we have – and what products we don’t have –  in our portfolio, to how we certify. There are very few (other) brands out there that certify their entire product line.

Our third pillar is customer experience. To me, this is getting people the right products at the right time. We recently released a new version of our website that allows people to navigate our products based on what we call need spaces – or pillars of optimization – which are Cognitive Function, Sleep, Athletic Performance and Foundational Health (Hormone Support has since been added). 

ATN: Who is Momentous’ target customer?

JB: We’re an aspirational brand, which means we’re built for those who are seeking to make changes in their lives. Our customer is much more of a mindset customer. It’s that continuously curious consumer who is an optimizer. They could be on day one of their optimization journey, but they’re looking to make changes in their life long term. They care about quality, they’re curious about content and are knowledgeable. Those people range from 18-year-olds to 70-year-olds, from male to female, overweight to underweight, from CrossFiters to football players. It’s a pretty deep pool, so we tend to target people not based on demographics but based on psychographics and sociographics. 

ATN: What kinds of work does Momentous do with sports teams and the U.S. government?

JB: We made a custom recovery product for one of the top NFL teams, although I’m not at liberty to say who. We worked with them to source, create and get the right ratios, and now we have a custom product that they use exclusively in their locker room as a competitive advantage. That’s been a really exciting product for us to build to flex some of our bespoke muscles. We’re working on seeing if we can launch it to the public sometime in the next year.

We’re also under contract with the Department of Defense. We’re developing what will hopefully become three novel products over the next two or three years that will be funded by the Department of Defense and clinically validated in top university settings, and then we’ll be able to sell those as well. One of them is a cognitive stimulant, another is around connective tissue health and then the last one will be around hydration.

ATN: Looking ahead, what areas of health and wellness are you most excited about? 

JB: There are two main areas. I’m incredibly passionate about cognitive longevity because it touches me so closely as a former professional athlete and it touches the people I care about. As we age, the likelihood is that our mind is going to go before any else. I think the real goal of longevity will become, Can we make the brain survive long enough or be sharp enough as we all age? One of my most passionate stories is about creatine monohydrate. Most people think creatine is just for bodybuilders and meatheads. But taking creatine monohydrate is one of the most impactful things we can do for long-term brain health. That’s the education aspect we need to bring and the difference we want to make for consumers. 

Number two is, there’s a lot of misinformation about female health. There’s not a ton of great clinical research around female health, so it just needs to be invested in and better understood across the board. Males and females are completely different, so I think there’s a great opportunity for us to help champion female performance and female longevity.

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