Assembly Ventures
Investment Memorandum
Deal Review · September 2026

HP-1

The UK's focus-first performance supplement brand for high-output adults
Round £300K Bridge · Priced Equity Pre-money £3.0M Lead Angels Den × Forward Partners · £125K Committed £150K of £300K EIS Available Min. Cheque £5,000
Analyst Verdict
BACK
Conviction Level
MEDIUM–HIGH
Exceptional early unit economics, a largely untapped 300M+ monthly reach creator flywheel, and a confirmed Boots listing — all built in five months on zero paid spend. The bridge funds the one missing piece: a functioning paid acquisition channel. Entry at a £3M pre-money ahead of a December seed round projected at £8–11M is a favourable entry point for patient angel capital.
£140K
Organic Revenue · 5 Months
83%
Gross Margin (CM1)
61%
Contribution Margin 2
54%
Repeat Customer Rate
3.5K
Unique Consumers
4.7★
Trustpilot Rating

01 · Executive Summary

The Opportunity in One Paragraph

HP-1 is a UK-manufactured, science-dosed nootropic supplement brand targeting the fast-growing cognitive performance segment — the UK's fastest-growing supplement category at 14.7% CAGR through 2032. The company was co-founded by Jeremy Lynch (Jez), one of the world's most viewed content creators with 250M+ monthly views and 60M+ followers, who is both a founder-investor and the brand's primary distribution channel. Five months in, HP-1 has generated £140K in organic revenue, achieved 83% gross margins, a 54% repeat purchase rate, and secured a Boots distribution deal for 60+ stores from October 2026 — all without a single pound of paid advertising. The bridge round funds the paid acquisition layer, the "Daily" product launch, and the Boots inventory run. It prices at a £3M pre-money valuation, ahead of a projected seed round in December 2026 at £8–11M.


02 · Market Context

A £40B Category With No UK Performance Champion

The attention economy has created a measurable productivity crisis: 79% of UK adults feel they fail to reach their potential due to lack of focus; 77% of workers report regular distraction; the average person takes 23 minutes to recover focus after an interruption. The tools people reach for — coffee, energy drinks, Pro Plus — deliver caffeine alone. No stack, no buffer, no sustained effect.

The functional supplement market is responding. UK cognitive supplements are growing at 14.7% CAGR (2025–2032), with nootropics up 25.5% in 2023 alone. AG1 — the closest comparable at £79/month — commands the "daily stack" position in the US and has begun building UK presence. No UK-native brand occupies that tier. HP-1 is positioned to be the domestic challenger.

14.7%
CAGR · UK Cognitive Supplements 2025–32
£40B
Global Multivitamin / Daily Stack Market
£79
AOV — Proven Consumer Willingness to Pay (AG1)
0
UK-Native Competitors at the Premium Daily Tier

03 · Product

Science-Dosed. UK-Made. No Proprietary Blends.

HP-1's differentiation is transparency and clinical dosing. Every ingredient is at a peer-reviewed, validated dose with no proprietary blend obscuring the stack. The product is Informed Sport certified, EFSA compliant, B Corp certified, and manufactured in the UK — credibility markers that matter at the premium price point.

Current Lineup

Focus Capsules — launched December 2025. Proved the product, the margin, and the market. Core stack: Caffeine + L-Theanine (the differentiator — extends focus, eliminates crash), Creatine (ATP production, working memory), Ginkgo Biloba (120mg, cerebral blood flow), B12, Bacopa Monnieri.

Focus Powder — launch-ready. Clinically dosed formula in a new format; broader occasion use, broader customer base, same manufacturing and distribution infrastructure.

This Round Funds

"The Daily" — HP-1's premium daily supplement stack. Subscription-first. Entering the tier currently owned only by AG1 in the UK. The formulation beats AG1, IM8 and Huel Daily on the vitamin and mineral blend, plus creatine, omega-3 and NR — all at clinically validated doses from peer-reviewed evidence published in the last 10 years. This is the product that transforms HP-1 from a focus brand into a daily performance platform and unlocks high-ASP recurring revenue.


04 · Unfair Advantage

300M Monthly Views That Haven't Been Activated Yet

This is HP-1's structurally differentiating asset. Jeremy Lynch (Jez) is not a paid influencer — he is a founder and investor in the business. His audience of 250M+ monthly views (27.7M TikTok followers, 13.1M YouTube subscribers, 6.8M Instagram) is untapped distribution that costs HP-1 near-zero CAC. Yianni Charalambous — UK entrepreneur, TV personality, founder of Yiannimize — adds 50M+ monthly views as advisor and investor.

Critically, these creators have deliberately not activated their full audiences for HP-1 yet — a considered decision to ensure product, website, and paid acquisition infrastructure were conversion-ready before driving significant top-of-funnel volume. That unlock is imminent.

300M+
Combined Monthly Creator Views (Untapped)
60M+
Combined Followers Across Platforms
~£0
Incremental CAC from Creator Channel
50+
New Affiliate Creators Added Per Month

The compounding flywheel: Jez and Yianni drive top-of-funnel awareness at near-zero CAC → a growing affiliate army (tiered macro/mid/micro, targeting professionals, fitness and finance communities) handles conversion → every sale recruits the next seller. Paid ads disappear. Affiliate content keeps selling for years.


05 · Unit Economics

Best-in-Class Margins at Five Months

83% gross margin (CM1) and 61% contribution margin (CM2) achieved entirely on organic revenue and small-scale affiliates — before paid acquisition, before creator activation, before subscription. These are exceptional figures for a physical consumer brand at this stage, and validate both the manufacturing model and the premium price point.

The 54% repeat purchase rate — earned without a loyalty programme, subscription push, or paid retention spend — is the most important signal in this deck. It indicates real product efficacy and habitual use: customers are coming back because the product works, not because they're locked into a contract.


06 · Team

Operators, Not First-Timers

Hamilton Bowler
Founder & CEO
Ex-Adidas global PR. Co-founder PWR House. Architect of London 2012 Olympics brand activations. Brand strategy and athlete relationships.
Menno Wagenaar
Founder & CMO
20+ years consumer marketing. Built and led global marketing, sales and partnership teams at Meta, Amazon, and Coca-Cola.
Dave Leaver
CFOO & Investor
Ex-KPMG. AI-first CFO with 20+ years across VC/PE-backed SaaS, ASX-listed enterprises, Martech, DTC brands and influencer businesses.
Chloe Gordon
Head of Strategy
Ex-Beirsdorf, Gordon Ramsay, Uber. 10 years at the intersection of marketing, sales and operations in consumer and tech.
Alex Brassill
NPD & Growth
Ex-Hut Group / MyProtein. Founded JNCK Bakery (Dragons' Den). Deep expertise in supplement NPD and challenger brand scaling.
Jeremy Lynch
Founder & Distribution
250M+ monthly views. 60M+ followers. Global brand ambassador for adidas, Red Bull, UEFA, Meta. Founder-investor with skin in the game.

07 · Use of Proceeds

Three Specific Jobs for £300K

This is a bridge to a December 2026 seed round. The funds address the one acknowledged gap — paid acquisition underperformance — and launch the product that anchors the seed narrative.

Allocation £ Amount Purpose
Marketing · 45% £135,000 Specialist ad agency (Catalyst — DTC supplement experts on Meta/TikTok) + CRO agency (Steplabs — Shopify-focused conversion optimisation). Previous ad spend has been suspended; these two agencies are the fix.
Inventory · 35% £105,000 First production run of HP-1 Daily — the high-ASP subscription product entering the AG1 tier with no UK-native competitor.
Operations · 20% £60,000 Dedicated in-house community manager to activate and manage the affiliate army and creator network at scale.

Key context on the paid acquisition failure: HP-1 openly acknowledges that their previous agency spent budget on Facebook ads targeting the wrong audience. Ad spend has been turned off since April. Catalyst has been engaged to fix creative, channel selection, and audience targeting. This transparency is a positive signal about founder quality — they identified the problem, stopped the bleed, and found the fix before asking for more capital.


08 · Deal Terms

Round Structure

✓ EIS Relief Available
Term Detail
Instrument Priced equity round
Raise Target £300,000
Pre-money Valuation £3,000,000
Minimum Ticket £5,000
Lead Investor Angels Den × Forward Partners — £125,000 committed
Total Committed £150,000 (50% filled)
Remaining £150,000
Tax Relief SEIS allowance allocated · EIS remaining
Previous Raise £500,000 pre-seed from angels including Jez Lynch and Yianni Charalambous
Next Round Seed — targeted December 2026 / January 2027 at £8M–£11M pre-money (2.7–3.7× step-up)

Round Status

£0 £150K committed · 50% £300K target
Lead: Angels Den × Forward Partners · £125K. Round closing ahead of Boots launch (October 2026).

09 · Financial Projections

Revenue Trajectory (Sept Year-End)

Projections are management's and reflect activation of the creator channel, Boots retail rollout, The Daily subscription launch, and normalised paid acquisition. Treat with appropriate caution — the FY27 7× step requires multiple channels firing concurrently.

£305K
£2.1M
£5.6M
FY26 · 10 Months
FY27
FY28

At a conservative 3–4× forward revenue multiple, management targets a £8M–£11M pre-money seed valuation in December 2026 — a 2.7–3.7× step-up from today's entry price for bridge investors.


10 · Risk Assessment

Bull Case vs. Bear Case

What We Like

  • 83% GM and 54% repeat rate at five months are genuine outliers for a physical brand at this stage — product efficacy is real
  • Creator moat is structural, not rented: Jez is a founder with equity. This channel hasn't been switched on yet
  • Boots listing at month five is a credibility signal most consumer brands take years to achieve
  • No UK competitor at the premium daily performance tier — the AG1 white space is real
  • Team has deep relevant experience: Meta/Amazon-level marketing, ex-MyProtein NPD, ex-KPMG finance
  • EIS relief significantly improves the risk-adjusted return profile
  • £3M pre-money is attractive entry given potential £8–11M seed in three months
  • Angels Den × Forward Partners as lead is a meaningful validation signal

What Gives Us Pause

  • Paid acquisition has failed once already — the new agencies (Catalyst, Steplabs) are unproven in this specific context
  • FY27 projection requires ~7× revenue growth — ambitious even with creator activation and Boots distribution
  • Revenue concentration risk: Jez's audiences are highly aligned but largely male, 18–35 — potentially narrower than the "high-output adult" positioning suggests
  • The Daily enters direct competition with AG1, which has significantly more capital and brand awareness
  • £300K bridge is lean — limited buffer if paid acquisition takes longer than expected to work
  • Supplement market is crowded at the lower end; premium tier is defensible but requires sustained brand investment
  • Early-stage brand with five months of data — limited evidence base for projecting repeat behaviour at scale

11 · Analyst Conclusion

The Thesis in Three Sentences

HP-1 has built something genuinely unusual in five months: product-market fit evidenced by a 54% repeat rate, best-in-class margins, a confirmed major retailer listing, and a distribution flywheel (300M+ monthly creator views) that hasn't been turned on yet. The bridge round exists because paid acquisition didn't work the first time — that's a real risk that investors should price in — but the organic fundamentals and the structural creator advantage are strong enough that this looks like an execution gap rather than a model failure.

Entry at a £3M pre-money valuation, with EIS relief available and a lead from Angels Den × Forward Partners, represents a favourable risk-adjusted entry for angel capital with a 12–18 month time horizon to a seed round at materially higher valuations. Recommended for investors with appetite for consumer-brand early stage risk and a belief in the creator economy as a structural distribution channel.