DTC’s Daily Digest brings you the latest news on the world’s fastest growing direct-to-consumer brands. In today’s edition: Men’s wellness brand ASYSTEM launches; JustPark into overfunding; and Oyo has raised USD$1.5bn. 

Men’s wellness brand ASYSTEM launches

ASYSTEM, a brand selling skincare and supplement products for the everyday man, has now launched. Co-founder Oliver Walsh said “No one is really building in an aspirational, modern, diverse and inclusive way, which is the way we feel that brands should be built.” 

ASYSTEM just raised a USD$4m seed round from a crop of investors, including Firstminute Capital, S8 Capital, PLG Ventures. Board members include Kevin Datoo, former COO of Dollar Shave Club. ASYSTEM just raised a USD$4m seed round from a crop of investors, including Firstminute Capital, S8 Capital, PLG Ventures. 

The “betterment” startup offers a subscription-based daily vitamin supplement package for USD$75 a month and a 3-step skincare package for USD$45 a month. While ASYSTEM wants to “redefine men’s wellness” it’s hard to forget about the obvious, also venture-backed competition that has risen up recently.

ASYSTEM’s “superhuman supplements” promise optimization in focus, stamina, energy, mood, and sex drive, according to a press release. As a WIRED story pointed out this year, the blurry line between pharmaceuticals and supplements can be vague and potentially dangerous.

JustPark into overfunding

JustPark is in overfunding for a £4m round on Crowdcube, currently at £6.4m. The business, which connects drivers looking for parking with homeowners with empty driveways, had a pre-money valuation of £80m. 

JustPark is in every major UK city, and is growing by an average of 110,000 users per month since Sept 2018 (185,000 in August 2019). This funding will help JustPark to accelerate our core business, expand into new markets and explore our role in the future of mobility.

Outside of this core business, JustPark are entering in to the revolution underway in the mobility space, with electric vehicles and personal mobility transportation attracting £100 of billions in investment across the globe.

The company’s low cost of customer acquisition, JustPark are building distributed networks that new mobility solutions need in order to accelerate adoption. The company, which was founded in 2006, has already raised £14.7m from seven funding rounds. 

Oyo has raised USD$1.5bn

Oyo, the SoftBank-backed discount hotel chain whose soaring valuation has drawn comparisons to WeWork, has raised USD$1.5bn from investors including its 25-year-old founder Ritesh Agarwal.

The CEO is working with its existing venture capitalists to buy new shares in the company, however, it had been reported that the CEO was going to buy secondary shares from its investors. The unusual deal doubles Oyo’s valuation to USD$10bn and raises Mr Agarwal’s stake in the company to 30%. 

The transaction will allow SoftBank to report an improved paper performance from its investment at a time when other bets by the Japanese group such as WeWork and Uber have suffered falling valuations. Oyo said in a statement on Monday that the remaining funds would come from existing investors including SoftBank.

Already the largest hotel chain in India, Oyo has expanded rapidly and now has a presence in 80 countries and more than 1.2m rooms. Roughly half of them are in China, where it launched two years ago. It also recently announced a USD$300m investment in the US, where it has 50 hotels.

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