What does $300 million to 'disrupt formula' look like?

It looks like these tech bros making BANK from breastfeeding struggles. Let's meet the ByHeart investors, shall we?

Jan 28th is tomorrow (or today) depending on your doomscrolling schedule! It’s the day we post, blast, and email these DUDES who could turn off the ads and put parents before profit. Sign up to make good trouble.

People will sometimes talk about “the mommy wars,” as if the biggest battle mothers face is with other mothers. But the defining conflict of early motherhood isn’t mother versus mother. It’s the systems that profit from separating you from your baby.

So I always like to a to take a look at who those people are and in the case of ByHeart there’s a long list of men who have a vested financial interest in women buying cans of their formula. They also stand to make a larger profit the more women forgo exclusive breastfeeding and opt to use formula. In the case of ByHeart investors, they put in $300 million dollars to ‘disrupt the formula market.’ What that means in short, is that ByHeart’s backers agreed with founder Ron Belldegrun that there was a ‘hole in the market.’

Here’s the pitch: given that all infant formula on U.S. shelves is produced by just three manufacturers using proprietary blends developed 20 to 30 years ago, ByHeart could offer something different: a new formula created from scratch, based on more up-to-date science, made with “clean” ingredients, and sourced with organic milk.

Money started rolling in. ByHeart raised $160 million in their first round, then nearly double in the next, from investors with little experience in manufacturing, healthcare, food, or pediatrics. Their portfolios leaned instead toward tech, AI, and lifestyle brands. And with tech heavy money we can speculate that there was a tech ethos which is to go fast and ride the bike while building it. Which seems to work when you’re building an app or a gadget but has potentially dangerous consequences when you crash into the delicate infant formula ecosystem.

Instead of building a factory from the studs up to ensure pristine production, ByHeart bought two aging, troubled plants and tried to retrofit them into infant formula facilities. The result was years of issues with pathogens, rats, mold, and now botulism. All of it under a CEO, Ron Belldegrun, an investor by trade with no prior experience running a company and no background in manufacturing.

It looks like ByHeart is going to begin production again because those investors want to recoup on their risky investment.

And the deep irony is that none of these men have ever nursed a baby. Have never endured labor or birth trauma. They have never had to lock themselves in a work closet to pump. They will never struggle with breastfeeding, they will only profit from it’s barriers.