Christine Esposito, Managing Editor01.07.22
While it shifted gears and wasn’t in Las Vegas for CES as planned, Procter & Gamble was still in the hunt for innovation during the world’s largest consumer electronics show. Last night, the CPG giant’s early-stage startup studio, P&G Ventures, virtually hosted its Innovation Challenge.
The four finalists—Kushae Naturals, Lady Patch, Ryp Labs and skincare company Cybele Microbiome—were online to present their ideas to a panel of six judges. At stake was $10,000 and the opportunity to work with P&G Ventures to continue developing their product.
Judges included Victor Aguilar, chief R&D and innovation officer for P&G; Guy Persaud, president of new business, P&G; Saeed Amidi, founder and CEO, Plug and Play Tech Center; Sarah Anderson, founding partner, Vault Fund; and Lee Henderson, Americas EY private leader and executive sponsor, EY Entrepreneurs Access Network.
Phil Duncan, chief design officer, Procter & Gamble, served as event host and welcomed those who were streaming the competition on January 6, 2022.
Duncan said this year’s challenge brought in the largest ever number of entries and highest percentage of female founders to date.
Each finalist had 10 minutes to pitch their innovation, followed by a five-minute Q&A session with the judges. After the final pitch, the judges were given 10 minutes to pick the winner. However, the judges deliberated longer. The extra time enabled a longer entrepreneurship session with admins from Clubhouse’s Startup.Club, Michele Van Tilborg and Colin Campbell. P&G has been partnering with Startup.Club during CES.
Two of the four companies in this year’s pitch competition focus on women’s health and wellness, one was a skincare brand and the other a food-tech firm.
Kushae Naturals, an all-natural, pH balanced, doctor-formulated feminine hygiene product company, was the first company to present. Co-founder and CEO Kimba Williams, who spent 15 years in the pharma industry before joining Kushae, pitched the women’s wellness brand to the judges.
According to Williams, Kushae is designed to deliver a suite of nontoxic feminine health products from menstruation to menopause.
She noted that Kushae is intentional about the products it offers, which span across a women’s lifecycle. It sells in five segments including daily health and hygiene, such as intimate wash and deodorant spray. The brand also sells BV/yeast products, menstruation cups and and menopausal products.
Kushae currently has 13 products and more in the pipeline, according to Williams.
Nicole Scott, co-founder and CEO of Cybele Microbiome, San Diego, CA, was next to pitch. Her skin care company is comprised of a “team of expert scientists, visionaries and architects of the future of the skincare industry.”
Cybele says her brand, Reuleaux, is unlike other skin care because rather than treating symptoms, it treats the problem. The brand’s four serums, all of which have been designed to work with the skin microbiome, are currently sold direct to consumers.
“Fundamentally, we are creating healthier skin,” Scott said during her pitch.
Ryp Labs, Kirkland, WA, a food and crop protection company with biomimicry solutions to combat global food waste, naturally and safely, was the third company to pitch. Co-founder and CEO Moody Soliman said that the commercial side of Ryp Labs business is the company’s “bread and butter,” but its technology that enables produce to last longer after harvesting has applications in B2C space as well.
The final—and winning—pitch came from Cindy Santa Cruz, founder of Lady Patch, a drug-free patch that prevents feminine bladder leaks and the frequent urge to urinate.
In her pitch, Cruz presented a heartwarming story centered around solving her mother’s issues with incontinence, as well as the opportunity for her patch to make a difference in what she called a $5.8 billion market of “suboptimal solutions.”
Lady Patch is FDA approved and is offered DTC through Amazon.
In the Q&A with judges, Santa Cruz said that using patch is “a new behavior” that needs to be introduced to users. But once they see how it works, they “get over it,” she said referring to the application process.
P&G’s Persaud, before announcing the winner, said he was impressed by each finalist’s passion for addressing consumer pain points.
“Any of the four outstanding finalists could have won,” he said.
Lady Patch was named the winner, but P&G had a surprise for the three other entrepreneurs—they were each presented with $5000.
In addition to the record number of submissions from companies with a female founder (60%), P&G Ventures said the number of submissions from Black and Latinx founders reached 30%.
Last year's event was also held virtually.
The four finalists—Kushae Naturals, Lady Patch, Ryp Labs and skincare company Cybele Microbiome—were online to present their ideas to a panel of six judges. At stake was $10,000 and the opportunity to work with P&G Ventures to continue developing their product.
Judges included Victor Aguilar, chief R&D and innovation officer for P&G; Guy Persaud, president of new business, P&G; Saeed Amidi, founder and CEO, Plug and Play Tech Center; Sarah Anderson, founding partner, Vault Fund; and Lee Henderson, Americas EY private leader and executive sponsor, EY Entrepreneurs Access Network.
Phil Duncan, chief design officer, Procter & Gamble, served as event host and welcomed those who were streaming the competition on January 6, 2022.
Duncan said this year’s challenge brought in the largest ever number of entries and highest percentage of female founders to date.
Each finalist had 10 minutes to pitch their innovation, followed by a five-minute Q&A session with the judges. After the final pitch, the judges were given 10 minutes to pick the winner. However, the judges deliberated longer. The extra time enabled a longer entrepreneurship session with admins from Clubhouse’s Startup.Club, Michele Van Tilborg and Colin Campbell. P&G has been partnering with Startup.Club during CES.
Two of the four companies in this year’s pitch competition focus on women’s health and wellness, one was a skincare brand and the other a food-tech firm.
Kushae Naturals, an all-natural, pH balanced, doctor-formulated feminine hygiene product company, was the first company to present. Co-founder and CEO Kimba Williams, who spent 15 years in the pharma industry before joining Kushae, pitched the women’s wellness brand to the judges.
According to Williams, Kushae is designed to deliver a suite of nontoxic feminine health products from menstruation to menopause.
She noted that Kushae is intentional about the products it offers, which span across a women’s lifecycle. It sells in five segments including daily health and hygiene, such as intimate wash and deodorant spray. The brand also sells BV/yeast products, menstruation cups and and menopausal products.
Kushae currently has 13 products and more in the pipeline, according to Williams.
Nicole Scott, co-founder and CEO of Cybele Microbiome, San Diego, CA, was next to pitch. Her skin care company is comprised of a “team of expert scientists, visionaries and architects of the future of the skincare industry.”
Cybele says her brand, Reuleaux, is unlike other skin care because rather than treating symptoms, it treats the problem. The brand’s four serums, all of which have been designed to work with the skin microbiome, are currently sold direct to consumers.
“Fundamentally, we are creating healthier skin,” Scott said during her pitch.
Ryp Labs, Kirkland, WA, a food and crop protection company with biomimicry solutions to combat global food waste, naturally and safely, was the third company to pitch. Co-founder and CEO Moody Soliman said that the commercial side of Ryp Labs business is the company’s “bread and butter,” but its technology that enables produce to last longer after harvesting has applications in B2C space as well.
The final—and winning—pitch came from Cindy Santa Cruz, founder of Lady Patch, a drug-free patch that prevents feminine bladder leaks and the frequent urge to urinate.
In her pitch, Cruz presented a heartwarming story centered around solving her mother’s issues with incontinence, as well as the opportunity for her patch to make a difference in what she called a $5.8 billion market of “suboptimal solutions.”
Lady Patch is FDA approved and is offered DTC through Amazon.
In the Q&A with judges, Santa Cruz said that using patch is “a new behavior” that needs to be introduced to users. But once they see how it works, they “get over it,” she said referring to the application process.
P&G’s Persaud, before announcing the winner, said he was impressed by each finalist’s passion for addressing consumer pain points.
“Any of the four outstanding finalists could have won,” he said.
Lady Patch was named the winner, but P&G had a surprise for the three other entrepreneurs—they were each presented with $5000.
In addition to the record number of submissions from companies with a female founder (60%), P&G Ventures said the number of submissions from Black and Latinx founders reached 30%.
Last year's event was also held virtually.