For over 15 years, Timeline has been crafting a brand rooted in innovation and credibility.
In just the past three, it’s achieved a remarkable 10X sales growth, bolstered by a surge in interest in longevity, loyal customers and high repeat purchase rates. Now, with exponential growth on the horizon, Timeline operates with more than 50 dedicated staff members across Switzerland and the United States, where the majority of customers reside.
“Today, we stand as one of the fastest-growing digital-native brands in the U.S.” says Federico Luna, chief marketing and e-commerce officer at Timeline.
In January 2023, the brand selling supplements and skincare raised a $66 million in series D funding, including strategic investments from global giants Nestlé and L’Oréal via its venture capital arm, BOLD, marking a significant milestone in its journey.
Speaking in November at Beauty Independent’s Dealmaker Summit in London, Luna reflected on Timeline’s origins. Established in 2007 as Amazentis, a spinoff of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, it was co-founded by Chris Rinsch, a life sciences investor and innovator; Pierre Landolt, a seasoned investor and former Novartis board member; Patrick Aebischer, a doctor, neuroscientist and former president of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne; and André Hoffmann, a billionaire businessman and descendant of the founder of Roche.
The global pandemic and shifting consumer behaviors accelerated Timeline’s growth. “For the first time, we’re seeing consumers willing to invest in preventive health measures. Our secret sauce lies in our clinical validation. With over 10 gold standard clinical studies and more than 50 patents supporting our technology, we’re delivering proven performance under a brand we’re incredibly proud of,” says Luna, adding, “What drives our momentum is the fusion of cutting-edge science with exceptional marketing and brand building.”
Below, he discusses the challenges and opportunities of the budding longevity segment, Timeline’s marketing approach and its future.
Why is longevity striking a chord in the beauty industry?
We look at longevity as an entirely new category. I think consumers in the industry at large are tired of the concept of anti-aging and the traditional, conventional anti-aging definition. Consumers are looking for products that deliver performance now AND protective benefits for the future. They’re looking for more preventative solutions that are clinically proven and, most importantly, that address those root causes of aging, cellular health, mitochondrial dysfunction and inflammation as opposed to just reactive cosmetic Band-Aid solutions.
What’s a challenge operating in longevity?
There is a lot of fountain of youth snake oil and, as a result, health experts, press editors and consumers are rightly skeptical about the space. This is a challenge on the one hand, but, on the other hand, is a real unique differentiator for us as we have invested tens of millions of dollars in research and have multiple placebo-controlled clinical trials to back up our products.
People expect quick results from products, but that’s not always realistic. How do you make sure you’re not losing customers if they don’t see noticeable or immediate results?
That’s the second challenge. People are looking for quick wins. But, again, for us, it’s also a huge opportunity because, unlike many brands in the longevity space, we can offer both our products—the ingestible and the skincare. They give you real meaningful results, not in a couple of days, but, depending on the product, you could see results within four weeks.
The skincare for us has almost become the visual proof that the brand works because, with the skincare products, you actually see the difference very, very quickly. You see it within a few weeks.
On the supplement side, our North Star is the clinical studies. We invested over 12 years of research before launching the first product. We were very fortunate to have very patient capital behind us in those early days, which allowed us to do things very differently.
I think that is a real advantage that our technology and our products have in terms of how we communicate that. A lot of it is working with people, health experts that people trust, but also being very, very transparent around the clinical studies saying that this takes four weeks or it takes eight weeks or it takes 16 weeks. Increasingly, consumers understand that. It’s a premium product, and they appreciate the transparency and the science behind it.
Beauty brands have leaned into Instagram and now TikTok. What’s your digital marketing strategy?
We have a full 360 dual model marketing program that has helped us bring the world a new ingredient and also a unique consumer brand. We’ve put Urolithin A [Mitopure] on the map as one of the most popular longevity bioactive ingredients globally today. We’ve also built our consumer brand, Timeline, from zero to one of the fastest-growing consumer health brands in the U.S. today.
It’s almost as if you were building collagen back in the day from scratch, but you were also building Vital Proteins. We’re doing both at the same time. That puts us in a really unique situation. Because we are the first to pioneer this ingredient, we have a lot of earned organic support, whether that’s from health experts or influencers on social.
Podcasts, for example, have been hugely successful for us. Many of these podcasts we don’t pay a dime to go on. We’re invited on as experts because we’ve been in this space and researching healthy aging and mitochondria before it was a thing. If I had to point out one unique point of our digital marketing that works really well for us, it’s the whole educational model built around social and especially podcasts.
The results we’re seeing today are the fruit of more than a decade of hard and meaningful research and also remarkable partnerships and marketing. Just as an example, we have hundreds of leading doctors, health experts and podcasters who recommend our products because they truly believe in the science behind them.
What’s in Timeline’s innovation pipeline?
Our ambition is to build the No. 1 longevity company, and we have a very exciting pipeline of cutting-edge products that are designed to meet key unmet customer needs. We are not a supplement company, and we’re not a cosmetics company, we’re consumer biotech and will continue to pioneer novel clinically proven solutions.
When you ask a consumer in the U.S., what is your longevity brand? If you ask them that question, many will say I buy my collagen from X brand, I buy my skincare from Z brand, I buy my sports nutrition from Y brand. What we’re looking to do is become a one-stop shop for longevity. There will be a whole suite of products coming out in 2025 and 2026.
We’re more bullish than ever on the category and our brand proposition.
Where do you identify as growth opportunities for brand?
Clinically proven products at the intersection of biotech, health and beauty. We’ve chosen to have a very limited product portfolio up until now. We have huge opportunities for product innovation, channel and distribution expansion, and whitespace geographic expansion opportunities.
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