What we put in and on our bodies matters; regrettably, it's not always the best

In a world beset by toxins -- in air, water, soil, food, and beauty products -- what we put in and on our bodies can inadvertently harm us.  At the same time, there's a yearning for legitimate alternative beauty and wellness, and a trillion-dollar market that supports that. 

In fact, 40% of Americans believe in some form of alternative wellness, and at the same time, find that the alternative wellness and beauty space offers contradictory messaging, usually unsupported by trusted science or FDA testing. Tainted with fads, overly complex, alternative product and lifestyle options are often avoided. 

Surya innovates within Ayurveda to provide trusted skincare, wellness, & lifestyle

Surya simplifies and modernizes Ayurveda through natural, botanical, restorative skincare, as well as through wellness programs, education, services, and self-care tools, so that customers can revive their connection with nature and spirit, restore balance, and discover that wellness, vitality, and longevity, as a lifestyle, are available, reliable, and practical.

Ayurveda's comprehensive system of wellness was designed 10,000 years ago by a group of elite yogis seeking wellness and longevity, and has been passed from generation to generation, now augmented and updated by Surya for maximum efficacy.

To provide a meaningful wellness and beauty solution that's accessible and effective, Surya works with a modern and curated aesthetic in partnership with New York's famous Case Agency, with strong luxury press, with a motivated celebrity client and influencer base,  as well as with doctors, FDA-registered home tests, and the establishment of pre-clinical trials.  As Surya's product labels note, this is: “Ayurveda For Modern Life."

While a small handful of Ayurvedic skincare brands exist in the U.S., none but Surya have successfully incorporated best-in-class branding, storytelling, education, products, programs, and press-worthy brand-anchor locations into one cohesive brand and lifestyle experience. This will allow Surya to own a substantial market share of Ayurveda’s trending re-emergence -- a “niche” global market expected to reach $14.9B by 2026.  

In fact, Surya is already poised to dominate the Ayurvedic portion of the trillion-dollar wellness market, evidenced by Surya's active and supportive celebrity clientele, Surya's new presence in Kelly Wearstler’s Proper Hotels, and initial acclaim, including a pre-opening award -- "Best New Hotel Spa," in Sunset Magazine.

Surya's unicorn goal is to make Ayurveda as pervasive -- and profitable -- as the $11B yoga industry has become over the last decades. In a post-Covid world crying out for genuine wellness, Surya can help a large swathe of the population achieve far more than healthy and beautiful skin -- Surya will provide the self-care tools that give rise to inner balance and well-being in a vital, ongoing product and service community. 

Impeccably sourced, innovatively formulated, & environmentally conscious

Surya's products build on the time-honored foundation of Ayurveda, and each ingredient is chosen for specific medicinal benefits, with a deep understanding of the synergistic power of various herbal and oil combinations. As do pharmaceutical companies, Surya believes in the curative power of the natural world, though in Surya's case, each ingredient in every product is natural and unadulterated, either organic or sustainably sourced, and absolutely free from any form of non-botanical preservative.

Here's a quick view of one of Surya's hero products, the Balancing Collagen Cream (which we'll come back to in a moment): 

All Surya's hero products are botanically rich, and often complexly, though commercially, produced.  Surya's Balancing Face Oil, for example, which speeds cellular turnover and nourishes and revitalizes skin, is made with 32 herbs, 9 oils, 4 essential oils, and 3 kinds of milk, including camel's. Three ancient Ayurvedic extractions -- water, oil, and lactic acid -- bring out each botanical's maximum healing value. 

The products, boxed in 100% post-consumer recycled fiber paper from Neenah, are also bottled in premium and silk-screened Miron glass, which has natural preservative properties, as well.

From the facial line to the single-use, three-pound bath soaks, Surya's products are, yes, delightful and cosmetic, but also therapeutic and transformative. Pre-clinical trials are being established for the Face Oil and Collagen Cream, as a variety of customers, and now dermatologists, have recognized that in certain cases, skin lesions and pre-cancerous cells have naturally been removed.  If these trials prove successful, Surya's success will extend well beyond that of a traditional skincare company.  

Surya's product offerings include Ayurvedic food and lifestyle SKUs, independent verticals that cross-sell and demographically expand lifestyle and community offerings. For example, Surya's paleo and anti-inflammatory Almond-Flour Breads -- Apple Date, Gingered Peach & Turmeric, and Almond Banana Walnut -- are best-sellers not only on Proper Hotel menus and select Los Angeles bakeries, but in all six of LA's Erewhon luxury natural foods markets, driving new customer segments to the Surya brand. 

Surya also offers services and wellness retreats, opening early 2021 in a showcase spa designed by starchitect Kelly Wearstler at Santa Monica's prize-winning Proper Hotel.  Many guests come for 7 days at a time, 4 hours per day, with two therapists working on each guest in synchrony, with oils that have been herbalized and cooked each night, all night, uniquely for each guest.

Finally, Surya offers scalable programs, such as the new online education platform with classes beginning at the start of 2021, the outcall and low overhead Mother Baby postpartum program, and Surya Dosha Yoga.

Through natural and luxury skincare and wellness products, through extensive wellness programs, and through press-worthy and acclaimed brand-anchor locations that feature these products, services, and programs, Surya's products live in a vital ecosystem that creates high customer life-time value across a wide demographic.

$1.2M revenue, a prize-winning new Spa, & DTC eComm launch promise an exciting 2021

From a completed and already prize-winning Kelly Wearstler-designed spa ready to open mid-Q1 2021 (and paid for primarily by Goldman Sachs); to a robust premium product line that's been manufactured and soft-launched; to a data-driven new web platform; to stand-out press in Vogue, Vanity Fair, Goop, etc.; and to an amazing influencer and celebrity client base that's continually growing, Surya's traction promises a particularly exciting 2021.

1. For 2018 and 2019, operating out of a residential location with no marketing other than passive press and word of mouth, Surya broke $1.2M in sales.  
2. Surya built one of the, if not the, largest celebrity client base in the Wellness Industry, with wide-reach clients that are natural advocates and influencers.
3. While projections are to be viewed as best-case scenarios, Surya's 4-Year numbers (which exclude Spa profit), assuming risk factors are mitigated, show a healthy business with good profit and growth.
   
   
4. Surya was approached by Proper Hotels (and other hospitality chains) to become a wellness partner across properties.  
5. Surya negotiated a $2.4M build-out contribution (80%) from Goldman Sachs for their first Santa Monica Proper Hotel flagship; with Kelly Wearstler, they constructed a stunning, press-worthy Santa Monica brand-anchor. The New York Times is planning an exclusive on the Q1 2021opening.
   
   
6. Surya has already been awarded "Best New Hotel Spa" by Sunset Magazine, even before opening.
7. After Covid's mandated March shut-down, Surya formalized and commercialized their in-house Ayurvedic Beauty & Wellness line, already featured in Vogue, Vanity Fair, Allure, In Style, etc.
8. Deep-benched supply chains have been established, initial production runs completed, and top-of-the-line, eco-friendly, and gorgeous primary and secondary packaging is complete.
9. In October 2020, Surya, completing the pivot from spa operations to scaleable product sales, launched their Case Agency-designed web and eComm platform, for review here, built for data and digital-first growth.
   
   
10. Surya partnered with the luxury and premier digital paid media agency Verb Brands and began initial and successful testing in November 2020.
    
    
11. Surya was approached by Kourtney Kardashian for B2B inclusion in her new Poosh marketplace, as well as by Gwyneth Paltrow for Goop, and many others.
12. Surya is concluding partnership talks with Young Living (a $1.5B essential oil company) for product collabs and marketing; Surya is in discussions with Alo Yoga for corporate affiliation; and of course, Surya has a marketing/revenue partnership with all Proper Hotel locations.
13. As Surya builds its social audience, Surya has acquired 17.1K+ followers on Instagram, 3.6K+ followers on FB, and is building a video audience, including, for example, 609K+ views on a recent Refinery 29 video.
14. And finally, with products readied in September, a new web portal launched in October, and paid media testing that began in November, these are certainly early numbers (and reflective of the ratio of all users who were exposed to an ad), but they're all exactly where we'd want them to be:
    
    

What started as a one-room labor of love in a guest house in a Pacific Palisades canyon quickly blossomed and took over Martha's entire home. With YoY from $60K to $180K to $330K to $600K to $1.2M, as one Surya investor said, "it's time for Surya to come out of the womb."

The biggest celebrities in the world... & the rest of us, too

Surya has an open door, through which a lot of interesting people walk: Angelica Houston, Beck, Ben Affleck, Cameron Diaz, Cara Delevingne, Chris Pine, Dakota Johnson, Emma Stone, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Emily Weiss, Feist, Gwyneth Paltrow, James Corden, Jennifer Garner, Julia Roberts, Kate Hudson, Katy Perry, Kelly Wearstler, Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Leona Lewis, Maria Sharapova, Matt Damon, Miranda Kerr, Orlando Bloom, Owen Wilson, Rashida Jones, Regina King, Rick Rubin, Shiva Rae, Ted Danson, The Princess Of Qatar, Usher, Zack Galifianakis, to name a few. All Surya clients, fans, and advocates.

Why? Surya's restoration and simplification of Ayurveda gets results. In fact, with lives transformed, Kourtney, Kelly, Beck, Shiva Rae, and Gwyneth, unsolicited, often write about Surya:  Gwyneth features Surya regularly on Goop, Kourtney's featuring Surya in her new Poosh Ecomm marketplace, and Beck is writing the introduction for Surya's new tabletop book.

And the rest of us? Data shows that Surya's core audience is 80% women (with the male segment growing), 28-65, open-minded, wellness-seeking, and ready for something that's natural healing, luxury, and works.

Surya leads with social, digital-first DTC product, supported by four synergistic verticals

Surya's plan is straightforward:  expand Kelly Wearstler designed,  press-worthy brand-anchor locations in Proper Hotels; launch full, data-driven B2C eComm in Q1 2021 supported by paid media; expand B2B distribution nationally, and eventually internationally; monetize partnerships with companies like Young Living and Alo Yoga; and take good advantage of Surya's unusually strong and impassioned influencer base. Through these five lines of attack, Surya expects to dominate market share in the Ayurvedic wellness sector, and capture significant portions of the broader trillion-dollar wellness market.

While fixed-capacity spa locations post-Covid must cap revenue at $3-4M (and are not included in Surya's 4-Year Projections because of the uncertainty), Surya's real growth will be fueled by scalable health and beauty products (DTC and B2B), scalable online education in Q1 2021, the synergistic food business unit (also DTC and B2B), and related program offerings.

Surya's 4-year, defensible projections show that Surya, after taxes and interest, can be in good profit at the end of Q4 Y1, with substantial growth in Y2-Y4, and can already justify a higher valuation cap than the one offered on Republic. Profit and growth are projected, in large part, because luxury cosmetics have extraordinarily high margins. With hero product SRPs at $180 and $185, Surya is no exception, even with the top quality and integrity of Surya's products. Ingredient, packaging, and production COGS are actually lower than attributed per-unit marketing, and all-in, the margins, even B2B, are strong and healthy.

Surya's movement from DTC to B2B will take place gradually over Y1, as will the start of international distribution, building on success and profit. 

But Surya's real ace in the hole is its pre-existing relationships with cosmetic corporate conglomerates, some of whom have already met with Surya and expressed strong interest in being second-stage investor partners once initial sales and data have been established. At their request, Surya has met with the venture capital divisions of Shiseido, Johnson & Johson, and Beiersdorf, all Surya fans, and all strongly interested in participation at the next -- and still early -- stage. 

It can't be overemphasized:  investment from these conglomerates would not only radically lift Surya's financial upside, but the support and augmentation in distribution, supply chain, and fulfillment would be a game-changer on its own. Each of the companies represents the "Z", as it were, the moment Surya gets from "A to B" with initially expanded sales and data.

To get from A to B, Surya will grow DTC through data-based eComm and social-first strategy, and, in conjunction with Gina Jacoby, a star in the cosmetic sales world who excels in creating market-leading growth for clean beauty brands and buyers, develop B2B with expectations of strong traction in national and global spas, in national retailers, and with eComm partners. Some of these partners, spas, and retailers have already reached out, setting the foundation for the sales ecosystem that will expand the customer base, community, and revenue. Surya's line sheet, evolving with new SKUs, is available here.

In a $5 trillion global wellness market, Surya can gain share in five significant sectors 

From traditional to preventive to nutrition, from personal care to anti-aging, fitness, and even wellness tourism, Surya serves multiple segments with a comprehensive offering. The Ayurvedic market alone is expected to reach $14.9 billion in 2026, following a similar trajectory in the West to Yoga, Ayurveda's sister science, now an $11 billion dollar mainstream staple. Surya's goal is to help Ayurveda quickly grow to that level, and to dominate market share.

Surya is uniquely positioned in the trending Ayurvedic & natural/luxury market 

As interest in Ayurveda swells, product-only companies are appearing on the landscape, next to traditional Ayurvedic presentations that focus on supplements and professional education. But nothing like Surya exists in the wellness market today -- a comprehensive and upscale line, truly natural and luxury, that exists within a lifestyle ecosystem supported by celebrity influencers and brand collaborations. Surya's ecosystem, which already includes ALO Yoga, Young Living, Poosh, Goop, Proper Hotels, and others, is the foundation for a growing community and strong life-time value per customer.

Surya's products are uniquely positioned as natural product in the growing luxury segment, filling a relatively empty niche, and are priced competitively in that space. 

Surya has trademarked the phrase, "The Leaders Of Modern Ayurveda", and is already positioning as that, with every expectation of dominating what is ultimately expected to be a multi-billion dollar segment of the trillion-dollar wellness market.

With an elegant restoration of Ayurveda, Surya is bringing a world of good to a world in need

In a post-Covid world yearning for sincere wellness, Surya can fill that sizeable void with natural and restorative skincare products, transformative treatments, and scaleable programs and home care. But Surya's mission aims far beyond nourishing, natural, luxury skincare. By simplifying and modernizing Ayurveda, by mainstreaming legitimate alternative wellness, Surya aims to improve the well-being of as many people as possible -- and in a fashion that will continue long after the anticipated M&A or related exit strategy of Surya. Even generationally after.  

Surya has brought the benefits of modern Ayurveda to many thousands of people, and plans to soon make that tens of thousands, and with successful execution, hundreds of thousands of people, and more. 

Over the last decades, the business of yoga has already accomplished exponential growth into a many billion-dollar market. Based on studies and trends, Ayurveda appears to be on a similar growth path. And we believe that Surya is already on top of that rising wave.

With $2.2M from clients, Surya is opening investment to accelerate rapid growth

When Surya pivoted from primarily Los Angeles treatments to a scalable product company with a national and ultimately global demographic, our first investor was Howard Wills, a client who wrote a check for $8,888.88. He liked how that number, on its side, represented infinity, as in -- with respect to Surya -- "infinity and beyond." We liked that idea, too.

As Surya's prospects came into focus, clients invested in larger amounts, up to $750K. One woman remarked that Surya and Ayurveda saved her life, and wanted to see Surya's offerings go viral, and reach as many people as possible.

So do we. 

Which is why we're excited to invite you, and as many enthusiastic investors as possible, to join us at whatever level feels appropriate. The energy of Surya's community is as important to us as the funding. This new group of financiers, of which every Republic member can be part, forms the dynamic core of Surya and will share in Surya's growth and successes, most dramatically in Surya's anticipated exit. By way of a short-term thank you, we've designed a series of perks; and by way of a permanent thank you, each investor will be commemorated by name in a special section of  Surya's web platform. 

Please join us in Surya's rapidly expanding adventure. We're honored to have you, and honored by your participation. For the sake of the world, we'll be fully devoted to making the most of your investment, and working hard for you to multiply it many times.

A superstar, a passionate CEO, & a serial entrepreneur, leading a team committed to success

As a graduate student, Martha left Bogota, Colombia to study computer science in the U.S., and at school was struck by the deep calm and undeniable glow of a group of women who'd just emerged from seven days of Ayurvedic treatments. Though Martha didn't know it, on that day, her life took a turn that would put her on movie sets with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, would have Mid-Eastern royalty call for pregnancy advice (and purchase a dozen gallon jars of her prized anti-stretch mark oil), that would put her on television shows, in magazines, and that would make her the subject of a new table-top artbook debuting in Fall 2021.   

But none of that interests Martha. She's exclusively and ardently focused on the good that Ayurveda can do, on a daily basis, for so many people. And while her mission has grown from private practice to internationally celebrated Spa, and while her products have grown from being packaged in unlabeled bottles to gorgeous gold-foil jars, her mission is exactly the same and now with a clear trajectory for success:  to bring the goodness of Ayurveda to the world at large.  

To that end, she has assembled a truly stellar team, which she co-leads with her husband, CEO Roger Soffer, who brings the operational and organizational experience of three decades in film and television production, and whose projects have collectively grossed over $500M. Focusing on high-level execution and systems, he leads the team in corporate and branding partnerships, positioning, and business expansion.

Martha and Roger are greatly enriched by the guidance, counsel, and close oversight of their Co-Founder, David Nikzad, a beloved Surya client who saw the unicorn potential of Surya. The original founder of Reinmkr Satsang and Orthogonal Thinker Inc., David was the first check in unicorn companies like Betterment, Vidyard, Ridecell, and others including Wefunder, Quartzy, Ridejoy, GazeHawk, RealCrowd, Meadow, Mellows, AdStage, and Arcview Capital. Additionally, Orthogonal holds secondary shares in anchor companies such as Airbnb, Equipment Share, and this very platform, Republic, itself.

Together, Martha, Roger, and David have assembled a remarkably stellar and impassioned group of seasoned and successful professionals to help build Surya nationally and globally, and to develop any pharma plays that exist in Surya's unique IP's. These professionals hail from the best cosmetic companies in the world (Estee Lauder, Tom Ford Beauty, and Laura Mercier), the best spas (Mandarin Orient, Four Seasons, The Well), and across the board, are at the top of their fields.