Launch Date: October 2020
Geography: New York City, New York
Founder: Larry Weiss, MD, Founder + Chief Scientific Officer
Executive Team: Adam Klausner, President
Notable Advisors:
Board Member: Darin Goldstein
Notable Investors:
2026 Full Year Projected Revenue: $2M - $5M, according to industry estimates
Primary Category: Skincare
Funding: Angel Investment
Primary Distribution Channel: DTC
Other Distribution Channels:
Key Retail Partners:
2026 Projected Offline Distribution Points: 200
We are a healthcare company, not a skincare company. Our founding and continuing mission is to understand and solve for the root causes of endemic inflammatory conditions in Western populations. We have started with topicals; we formulate microbiome restoring products by sustainably harvesting and fermenting botanicals indigenous to Amazonia.
Insights: Adam Klausner, President
Why now and why you?
The skincare industry has spent decades fixated on the skin's surface—actives, occlusives, exfoliants—while largely ignoring the ecosystem living on it. The science of the skin microbiome has matured to a point where we can finally act on what researchers have known for years: that a disrupted microbiome is at the root of most chronic skin conditions. The timing is right because consumers are ready. They've been educated by the gut microbiome conversation and are asking the same questions about their skin. As for why us: We came to this not as marketers looking for a trend but as a team that believed in our science first and then built the brand around it. That order of operations matters.
What fuels your competitive advantage?
It starts with the science and our exclusive Amazonian bioactives, but it doesn't end there. Most brands that talk about the microbiome are doing so superficially, adding a probiotic ingredient and calling it a day. Our competitive advantage is a genuine commitment to understanding the skin as an ecosystem and formulating accordingly. That means being as thoughtful about what we leave out as what we put in. It also means building a brand that can translate complex biology into something people actually want to use and understand. Science without accessibility is just research.
What’s your proudest accomplishment to date?
Our regenerative farming project with our partners at Plantus Industry in Natal, Brazil. Over the last seven years, together we have purchased and rehabilitated some 300 acres of land in the Atlantic Rainforest, the most biodiverse and endangered ecosystem in the world—the lungs of the earth. We are now completely vertically integrated in our ingredient sourcing supply chain.
What is the one thing you wish someone had told you?
That the product is only a third of the battle. The best formulation in the world doesn't matter if you can't tell its story compellingly, get it in front of the right people, and build the infrastructure to fulfill it at scale. I wish I had invested in those capabilities earlier and with as equal seriousness as I invested in the science.
What would you tell your past self before starting this journey?
Be more patient with the timeline and less patient with the wrong partners. The former will save you anxiety; the latter will save you years.
What does success look like in the next 3-5 years?
Becoming the recognized authority in microbiome skincare with distribution that reflects our positioning.
What's one industry trend that is overhyped, and what's being overlooked?
Overhyped: the ingredient arms race. Every season, there's a new hero ingredient that brands rush to formulate around before the science is there. Consumers are sophisticated enough now to see through this.
Overlooked: the relationship between what you put on your skin and what lives on it. The conversation about the microbiome has barely scratched the surface. Most brands treat it as a marketing layer rather than a fundamental design principle. The brands that build around microbiome health from the ground up, rather than retrofitting the concept onto existing formulas, are going to define the next decade of skincare.
How do you think the industry needs to evolve?
Greater accountability between claims and evidence. The gap between what brands say and what they can prove is still far too wide, and it erodes consumer trust across the entire category. I'd also like to see the industry move away from the idea that more is always better—more ingredients, more steps, more products. The skin is a self-regulating system. Our job is to support it, not overwhelm it.
If you could wave a magic wand, what one wish would you make for your business?
Clinical trial infrastructure that matched our ambition. The studies we want to run—rigorous, longitudinal, microbiome-specific—require time and resources that are disproportionately hard for an independent brand to access. With that data, every conversation we have—with retailers, press, consumers, dermatologists—changes. The science is on our side. I just want more proof to match the conviction.
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