Function is beating lifestyle again

Fertility quietly became a $1.5B platform

US Fertility just sold an equity stake to L Catterton, alongside existing sponsor Amulet Capital Partners, valuing the platform at $1.5B+.

This is one of the clearest examples of healthcare-style consolidation working in plain sight.

How it was built

• Formed in 2020 with Shady Grove Fertility as the anchor

• Physician-led roll-up: centralize labs, admin, billing, and patient acquisition

• Keep clinical decision-making local (the critical unlock)

Scale today

• ~120+ clinics and IVF labs

• 200+ physicians

• National footprint

The inflection came in 2023 with the Ovation Fertility merger, massively expanding lab density and throughput.

Why this matters
Fertility has:

• Structural demand (demographics don’t lie)

• High-acuity decision-making (not price-led)

• Lab economics that reward scale

This is healthcare PE playbooks, not consumer, quietly compounding.

Ripple isn’t plant-based milk. It’s protein milk.

Ripple Foods just raised $17M, led by Material Impact and Rich Products Ventures.

This isn’t oat vs almond anymore.

What actually matters

• ~8g protein per serving

• Allergen-free

• Neutral taste

• Functional replacement, not lifestyle signaling

Rich Products’ involvement is the tell: foodservice + scale distribution, not just a VC narrative.

Context matters:

• Fairlife is doing $1B+ in revenue under Coca-Cola

• Slate Milk reportedly raised at a ~$300M valuation

• Meanwhile, brand-led plant milks (Oatly-era) stalled once function disappeared

The takeaway
Plant-based milk was a trend.
Protein milk is a utility.

Ripple isn’t competing with Oatly.
It’s competing with Fairlife, just without dairy.

Beauty is splitting in two, and investors know which side wins

Paris-based Innerskin just raised $15M, led by Iris Ventures.

This is not aspiration skincare.

What’s different

• Barrier repair

• Inflammation control

• Chronic skin condition management

They’re not selling “better skin days.”
They’re selling fewer bad skin months.

Why investors care

• Medical positioning → dermatologist trust

• Protocol-based, chronic use → healthcare-like LTV

• Clinic distribution + DTC replenishment

Same playbook as:

• SkinBetter

• Alastin

• Obagi

• ZO Skin Health

Zooming out
Beauty investing has bifurcated:

• Influencer-led, CAC-fragile brands

• Clinical, outcome-driven, repeat-use platforms

Capital is moving decisively toward the latter.

🎙 Podcast Highlight: Design isn’t aesthetics. It’s strategy.

Most founders think design is how something looks.
Gregory Davidson built Lalo by treating design as system architecture.

A few things that stood out from our conversation:

1. Built by listeners, not parents
Greg and his co-founder weren’t parents when they started. They interviewed hundreds of parents before designing anything. Outsider curiosity beat insider bias.

2. Mastige, on purpose
Premium enough to feel elevated. Accessible enough to scale.
Not cartoon plastic. Not precious luxury. Real homes.

3. Systems, not SKUs
High chair → play chair → play table → tableware → bath → learning tower.
They weren’t launching products. They were building rooms of the home.

4. Innovation is marketing
Small, thoughtful innovations (footrests, trays, form factor) drove outsized returns.
As Greg put it: it’s much easier to innovate at a $90 hero product than a $10 bowl — and the margins follow.

5. Retail was delayed, then sprinted
Years of patience, then a full Target launch with a branded footprint.
The goal wasn’t just sell-through — it was driving traffic to Target.

🎧 Watch on YouTube, listen on Spotify.

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That’s it for this week.
If you liked this issue, forward to a friend who obsesses over brand strategy, capital flows, or exit timing.

In the Money – following the flow of capital in consumer

P.S. We love talking to brands interested in exiting in the next 3-18 months. If you know of any brands interested in exiting, or any firms trying to help port cos manage turnarounds, we'd love to share a POV.

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