To talk about the nutricosmetic startup Superlativa, one must explain the experience of its head and founder, Teresa Pueyo. After her training at Esade Business School in Barcelona in 2010, she developed her professional career in the finance sector, specifically in venture capital investment, both in Luxembourg and Singapore. It was during her time in Southeast Asia, where she spent more than five years as a manager of the venture capital fund led by Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook, searching for investments in nascent technology companies in both Asia and the United States, that she began to take an interest in and particularly resort to traditional Chinese medicine, and Ayurveda, from India.
Pueyo delved deeply into the knowledge of the solutions provided by natural ingredients and especially the benefits of adaptogens, powerful traditional herbs with anxiolytic, energizing, regulating, and immunostimulant properties.
Back in Catalonia, Teresa Pueyo missed access to this type of natural medicine and decided to embark on an entrepreneurial journey: she created Superlativa Botanicals in 2019. With the collaboration of Paula Graigner, a renowned herbalist from Santa Cruz (California), a member of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists of the United States and author of titles such as Adaptogens, the Superlativa project began to produce and distribute food supplements to promote women's well-being, helping them through non-invasive natural medicine to combat daily pathologies or imbalances (skin conditions, hormonal imbalances, physical pain, low defenses, digestive problems, stress, anxiety...).
Since its inception, this fem tech based in Badalona with a staff of five people also works in collaboration with experts in nutrition and natural health to develop the base of its products, which it manufactures in laboratories in Montcada i Reixac. Currently, Superlativa has accumulated a demand for 2,500 bottles of the five product references it commercializes and has just been introduced as a test in the pharmacy channel. This year, production will increase, and new products will be launched; for now, they are already working on new treatments for acne because "in skin conditions, from nutricosmetic solutions, adaptogens are also demonstrating their dermatological benefits," according to Pueyo, "as a result of the effects of stress, environmental pollutants, UVA rays...".
Teresa Pueyo's project, which currently has the support of the Netmentora network, initially required an investment of 25,000 euros, and in October 2021, it closed a financing round subscribed by various business angels, about which the entrepreneur does not provide information.
Regarding the future, she argues that "there is interest in pharmacies in having our products because they are a natural and non-invasive solution for specific and common problems, they are easy to take with a daily dose, and they have an adequate price," says Pueyo, who recognizes that Spain is a country with great potential in the food supplement segment and the pharmacy channel "will reinforce the credibility of our products."
The company has started selling in pharmacies in Catalonia this year, as a testThe entrepreneur knows wellthe North American market where consumers spend about 127 euros monthly on the purchase of food supplements when, in Spain, this expenditure is still around 47 eurosSuperlativa already has consumers in the United States ---from where 10% of its online sales come---, in Mexico ---reaching 30%--- and in other South American countries, with 20%. The goal is to reach 6,000 users by the end of this year; "not all our clients have to be women, we have beneficial products for the organism in general," assures Pueyo.
"Our client is an educated woman who, generally, seeks a solution to combat the daily stress she suffers due to her demanding work and family responsibilities, with concerns, with decision-making capacity... and who opts for an innovative formula that keeps her away from the consumption of drugs and helps her manage her daily life," she adds.