Ultrahuman bags $70M, Curie brand refresh, and £3.5M into marketing...

If you’re stressing out about BFCM…

We built this with the brands and partners who've seen it and are doing the work. The P&L, the timeline, the send calendar, the dashboards. A lot less theory and way more experience.

Get your BFCM playbook here:

Relevant for brands: around 10,000 ADA lawsuits and demand letters landed in 2025.

Settlements average $14,000, with another $5K+ in legal on top. Those violations don’t get fixed by just paying since they’re still sitting in your code, which is why the next demand letter shows up.

Overlay widgets don’t get you out of it either. These sit on top of your site instead of fixing it, and 1,000+ brands running AccessiBe, UserWay or AudioEye got sued anyway. Going manual isn’t much better: audits, user testing and custom dev start at $20K+/year for a one-time snapshot.

Patrol is the only Shopify app that remediates at the theme-file level, shipped as a new theme or a GitHub PR your dev can merge. The AI audit plus agentic testing saves 60+ hours upfront and 5+ dev hours every month after. Monday Swimwear, Mugsy, Cure, Wilde, Unreal and Huron are running it.

CIPA is the next wave, same problem wearing a different jacket. One brand’s cookie banner added 200+ accessibility violations per page on its own. CIPA coverage is now in beta on the same plan (and we got you access via an exclusive offer).

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[ in the news ]

Ultrahuman bags $70M to push into new health tech

Qualcomm Ventures, Labcorp, and a handful of others teamed up with Ultrahuman to break into a new era of health tech, locking in $70M for this next push.

Ultrahuman is tapping into new spaces by partnering with companies in the bloodwork, migraine, and “AI personal device” categories.

Personal health is becoming a massive wave in the DTC space, and this is one of the many changes we’re seeing in just the wearables war.

What this means for DTC operators:

Staying on the edge of what’s happening in your space, where the money is going, and how top brands are shifting, is going to give you the upper hand. There’s a lot of noise, but if you can carve out your lane by observing what the best are doing, you’ll have the upper hand.

Pip & Nut invests £3.5M into marketing

Earlier this year, Pip & Nut ran an award-winning “Obsession Spreads” campaign.

Now, they're building on it.

During September, they’re taking their campaign to the T.V and placements in the UK, like the London Underground. They’re also playing the long-term branding game. They’re not afraid to invest the big bucks into building out their newly named squirrel, “Cyril”, to rocket-launch their branding and recognition with their audience (they even held an official ceremony to announce their mascot’s new name).

What this means for DTC brands:

These guys are extremely brand-focused and pay close attention to their customers. And when you do this right, it leads to “obsessed” fans.

Curie lands the brand refresh, and Walmart feels it

Curie hit a super clean brand refresh back in July. Now, they're seeing a 29% lift in Walmart sales. Sometimes all you need is a fresh look to get your customers talking, and now they get to soak in all the benefits.

Sarah, the founder, is a marathon runner who was simply looking for a better deodorant, but she couldn’t find one.

So she built one instead.

Check out her full story here.

H2Tab drops first-ever Pineapple Tablet

We love to see the innovation.

H2Tab gives you Molecular Hydrogen water in seconds. Put the tablet in, let it dissolve, and drink to unlock the benefits.

Now we’re seeing more brands differentiate to stand out by introducing new flavors like Pineapple.

Great time to drop right before BFCM…

[ brands we’re watching ]

STRIV

STRIV launches their smart running insoles.

“STRIV measures the quality of every stride, bringing lab-grade biomechanics into everyday movement so you can train smarter today and keep doing what you love for years to come.”

With the fitness category soaring, I’m excited to see where they take this…

Set

Earlier in August, Set ran a brand activation play in NYC to launch their new Coastline collection.

Over the next several days, they generated over $3.5 million online in 24 hours and “it became the highest-grossing limited-edition drop in Set’s eight-year history.”

Here’s why it worked:

Instead of pushing influencer marketing, they drove their customers to pre-order at the activation and snag limited editions online. Then, when the launch went live the following day, there was a five-hour line out the door…

Combining IRL activations, hype with pre-orders, limited editions online, and a community-first approach, you can win in DTC.

Sapporo

On September 4, Sapporo and Capcom teamed up for the launch of Onimusha: Way of the Sword with limited-edition Sapporo packaging rolling out nationwide.

The collaboration also includes a sweepstakes running September 1 through December 31. One grand-prize winner and a guest will receive round-trip travel to Japan, four nights of hotel accommodations, and $1,500 in spending money. Five additional winners will receive custom Onimusha fan kits.

The partnership celebrates Sapporo’s 150th anniversary and the 25-year legacy of Onimusha, connecting two brands rooted in Japanese culture.

Limited-edition packs will be sold at participating Sapporo retailers nationwide throughout September, starting for fans across the country.

Hiya

Hiya is the fastest-growing children’s health brand.

Now it’s expanded into teen wellness with the launch of Teen Daily Multivitamin: its first product created specifically for ages 13+, featuring a clean formulation tailored to their unique nutritional needs, and paired with a design-forward experience teens can personalize.

[ quick hits ]

Fruit Riot → Smashes a collab with Koo-laid

Goodles → Getting acquired by Barilla. Wild times to be in the noodle space.

Fjällräven → This Swedish brand is expanding here in the US

Skypop → Protein soda gets in 10,000 stores

Quince → Their sample sale sold out (extremely fast)

This space continues to grow, and we’re glad you’re a part of it.

See you Thursday,

Zach and 1800DTC Team 1800DTC.com

P.S

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