Eyetamins is raising capital through a SAFE at a valuation cap of $7 million with no discount. This is an appealing valuation for an early-stage startup. It is further justified by the company’s revenue of more $500,000 in Eyetamins’ first year, amounting to a revenue multiple of around 13.4x. A reasonable valuation, along with strong revenue for an early-stage company, results in a very high price score for Eyetamins.

Dietary supplements is a fiercely competitive market without much regulation. The global eye health supplements market was valued at $2.26 billion in 2020 and was expected to grow annually at a rate of 7.7% through 2027. Increased vision impairment and more myopic populations are driving some of this growth, along with higher levels of eye disorders due to aging populations. North America held the highest revenue share of 35.6% in 2019, but the Asia Pacific region is expected to see rapid growth in the coming years. Eyetamins boasts customers across 105 countries, so it is tapping into this global market. Going global will be essential for Eyetamins to find success, as the market is not growing rapidly and there are established competitors. The market score for the company is around average due to these limiting factors.

Eyetamins is led by founder and CEO Dr. Kaudshal Kulkarni. Dr. Kulkarni received his MD from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Brunswick, New Jersey and is board certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology. Dr. Kulkarni completed a fellowship for a specialty in neuro-ophthalmology at the University of Miami. He served as an ophthalmologist for six years with Sharp Healthcare. Afterward, he became a neuro-ophthalmologist with Omni Eye Services and an associate adjunct surgeon at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai. He remains in these latter roles while he works to get Eyetamins off the ground. Eyetamins is Dr. Kulkarni’s first time in the startup space.

To supplement Dr. Kulkarni’s lack of business experience, his team includes four advisors. Finance Advisor Prakash Goswami was a manager for business operations at Paypal and a director for technology strategy and operations at VISA. Business Strategy & Operations Advisor Raghu Iyer has held leadership roles across North America, Europe, and Asia in financial services and pharmaceuticals. Clinical Advisor Anat Galor, MD, is a physician with Miami Veterans Affairs Medical Center and an assistant professor of clinical ophthalmology at the University of Miami. Clinical Advisor Sathy Bhavan, MD, is a vitreo-retinal surgeon with California Eye Specialists and was certified as an ophthalmologist in 2004.

On the team proper, Sandra Yeh, MD, is the head of the provider program. Dr. Yeh is a certified ophthalmologist as well as a cataract and LASIK surgeon. She founded the Prairie Eye Center in Illinois in 1997 and remains its president. She has been invited to serve as associate examiner for the American Board of Ophthalmology. 

Head of Customer Experience Eli Weiss is no stranger to startups. He co-founded Sayar Care, a hair loss supplement company, in 2016. He worked with a luggage startup as a director of customer experience, then managed customer experience with SIMULATE, which develops nutrition technology. Congruent with Eyetamins, he works as the Director of Customer Experience at OLIPOP, which produces a kind of health soda with prebiotics, botanicals, and plant fibers. 

Dr. Kulkarni has strong medical knowledge and experience that is very relevant to Eyetamins. He has also pulled together a group of advisors that begin to cover his business development and financial skill gaps. Overall, Eyetamins has a well-rounded team and scores well in this metric.

Health supplements is a crowded market. Competitors using similar ingredients to Eyetamins’ include Bausch + Lomb, Pure Synergy, and GNC. Eyetamins’ price point is relatively expensive next to these other brands. Bausch + Lomb, for example, retails a bottle of 90 eye vitamin softgels (one per day) for $25, while a 30-day supply of Eyetamins’ blue blocker goes for $39. In terms of marketing strategy, Eyetamins is targeting younger consumers and addresses a wider range of eye conditions than competing options.

Eyetamins is particularly weak on the defensibility metric. In terms of intellectual property protection, a patent is pending for its sea berry supplement, but none of its other products have any patent protection. Most of its ingredients are readily accessible to competitors and are already used in other eye supplements. Completing studies on its product will enhance its credibility, but until then, it’s not clear that Eyetamins’ product is vastly superior. Therefore, the company receives a low differentiators score.

Since incorporation in mid-2019, Eyetamins has rapidly generated traction and sales. After taking that year to prepare for product launch, Eyetamins secured $521,755 in revenue in 2020, with cost of goods sold at $217,790. The company’s average monthly recurring revenue is $20,000. Eyetamins boasts a subscription cohort retention rate of 90% per month. In all, the business has shipped 15,000 units across 105 countries to 6,000 consumers. These figures have been reached by using a direct-to-consumer distribution model through online vendors.

In terms of traction, Eyetamins has been working to appeal to younger generations of consumers with vegan and GMP certifications. According to Google metrics at the time of this writing, Eyetamins products have received 77% positive feedback in the United States, which isn’t bad. Negative feedback is largely centered around late response — to be expected from a limited team — and shipping issues. On social media, the company has 19,400 followers at the time of this writing. 

From both a revenue perspective and user traction perspective, Eyetamins has made excellent progress in a short period of time. Thus, its performance score is strong.

Despite a limited and competitive market and limited defensibility, Eyetamins is a relatively low-risk investment. Concerns surrounding the team pose the biggest area of risk. Eyetamins currently has no fully dedicated team members, not even the founder. Furthermore, Dr. Kulkarni is a solo founder. If anything happens to him or if he decides to leave the company, it could be difficult for Eyetamins to continue. 

Nutritional supplements is not a wide open market. It is swamped by competition, spurred on by lack of regulation around such supplements. To that end, Eyetamins absolutely needs top-notch branding to set high standards in credibility and consumer trust. However, the team lacks marketing expertise. Eyetamins can’t rely on the formulation of its products to stand out either, as major competitors use many of the same ingredients. Eyetamins products do boast some favorable consumer reviews, but it’s not the level of product reviews necessary to lead the market. In addition, patent protection is not yet there, and patent coverage overall is likely to be limited.

Revenue growth has been excellent but has come at a huge burn rate, so Eyetamins will need to continue scaling. Consumer concerns on shipping and response times must be managed now, as these processes will only get more complicated as the business expands. While the business claims to have customers across 105 countries, the extent of its sales in each country are not specified.

Eyetamins’ customer reviews are largely positive and reflect favorable results. The company’s high gross margins mean customers that do add to its profits are substantial and have played a large part in bolstering its first year and a half in operation. Thanks to robust distribution, Eyetamins has sold in more than 100 countries.

In the near future, Eyetamins plans to distribute to eye care providers, who can recommend the products directly to users. This could smooth the way to market adoption, as insurers often will cover nutritional supplements if they come with a doctor’s prescription. Such coverage is not a certainty, however. Even so, a patient’s physician has a bond of trust that likely can’t be duplicated by any other method of distribution. As the founder and many team members are physicians in this specialty themselves, they are the right people to encourage adoption among their networks. A fair valuation cap makes this round more attractive for investors, particularly given Eyetamins’ strong revenue growth thus far.

Eyetamins is providing nutritional supplements to treat eye conditions like dry eye, eye strain, and blue light protection. Its products are not scientifically verified, though consumer reviews of the product itself are positive. Ingredients are sourced from fair-trade operations, and gross margins are high.

Eyetamins has seen excellent traction in its first year and a half of operation, with more than $500,000 in sales across more than 100 countries. Its vegan certification and scientific branding have helped generate traffic on social media, allowing it to reach a target audience of younger generations. In addition, the team boasts many combined years of experience in ophthalmology and seeks to expand its distribution to eye care providers.

While a reasonable valuation makes this a tempting prospect for investment, significant returns are not guaranteed. Eyetamins products are not highly differentiated from its many competitors in a limited market. Intellectual property protection is limited, and its price point is high. In addition, the team lacks members that are full time or have marketing experience, marking a significant expertise gap as it seeks to scale operations further. Eyetamins’ stated objective is to keep operations lean, but branding is essential in this market. In addition, a notable burn rate means revenue will need to skyrocket before the business becomes profitable.

However, early performance has been outstanding, and the product appears high quality. While details on distribution and the process of reaching eye care providers would be nice, Eyetamins has the potential to significantly boost its revenue from already-impressive figures. For these reasons, Eyetamins is a Neutral Deal.

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Analysis written by Benjamin Potts.