After a first taste of the beverage industry, Zeke Bronfman and Nate Medow are back for a second round.
In case you don’t recall, college buddies Bronfman and Medow were the team behind startup XED Beverages, which launched in 2021 with RTD cocktail line Sesh and, later, released Hape Sake Spritz. When the company was acquired by Next Century Spirits in late 2022, it opened the door for the pair to jump back into a passion project that had been relegated to the back burner: teaming with actors Nikki Reed and Ian Somerhalder on The Absorption Company (TAC), a wellness-minded supplement platform with a unique edge.
As its name more than suggests, that edge is absorption — or bioavailability, to be more specific. According to the founders, TAC products use processing technology that can convert oil-based compounds into water-soluble nano powders, “allowing for a spectrum of bioactive materials” into the format for the first time.
Sourcing research from a combination of publicly available information and studies paid for out of their own pockets, Bronfman and Medow said they found that just 14% of nutrients consumed orally are absorbed, with the remaining 86% not. The message to consumers: along with wasting money, “you’re peeing out the good stuff.”
It may be a bit technical, but the concept of bioavailability represents a “through line that runs through pretty much every health and wellness product,” and something that can stretch across specific day parts and functions. In the case of TAC’s first product, it’s single-serve powder sticks available on the brand’s website in 14-count ($40) or 28-count ($70) boxes in four SKUs: Restore, Sleep, Energy and Calm.
As Bronfman put it simply: “We want to own bioavailability.”.
Reed (Twilight) and Somerhalder (The Vampire Diaries), the brand’s chief advocates and original creators, are heavily involved in driving that message home. With over 35 million combined followers on Instagram and X alone, the married business partners are using that reach to build a community around TAC with some early success; when they teased the brand’s February launch as “coming soon” and asked Instagram users to follow a private account for more info, they gained 200,000 followers with a week.
As for the young beverage entrepreneurs, their early success with Sesh has left them understandably emboldened. It certainly helps to have backers like Orgain founder Dr. Andrew Abraham and RSE Ventures co-founder Matt Higgins as investors and board members, both coming onboard in an early funding round that also included Red Bud Brands and Springdale Ventures. Alongside the four-strong team of Bronfman, Reed, Somerhalder and Medow, former Chef’s Cut and KIND executive Ben Garnero is at the helm as the company’s president.
Considering the pair’s rise thus far, this industry can’t be that hard, right?
“Just continuing to push things along and speak it into existence,” Medow said when asked for advice to first-time beverage entrepreneurs. “I wanted desperately to have a smoothie at Erehwon that I could order — we did that in April. Being able to just speak some things into existence has just been an incredible feeling.”