Sports nutrition start-up W1NNAS receives €370,000 investment in pre-seed financing round

Prominent business angels support Cologne-based start-up W1NNAS. New financing round will soon make performance pouches available to professional and amateur athletes

Cologne, 6 May 2024 - Cologne-based start-up W1NNAS, which specializes in sports nutrition, has successfully completed a financing round. Well-known business angels from the sports and pouch industry invested a six-figure sum. The investment of €370,000 is intended to finance the market launch and production of performance pouches for professional athletes. These are designed to help athletes optimize their performance and quickly overcome performance deficits.

Performance pouches for athletes

Performance pouches are small mouth pouches filled with powder that are placed under the upper lip. They allow ingredients to be quickly absorbed into the bloodstream via the oral mucosa. The start-up, founded by Pablo Klüppelberg and Ben Decker in 2022, plans to enter the market this year.

During the development phase, feedback from top athletes from top European soccer, the NBA and NHL was very important to us

Pablo Klüppelberg, Co-Founder of W1NNAS

It took two years to develop the products. After numerous test runs of the doping-free performance pouches, the market launch is planned for the end of this year. In contrast to harmful nicotine pouches, the pouches from W1NNAS are free of nicotine and tobacco. They were developed in collaboration with sports physicians and tested for doping. Over 40% of Premier League professionals use harmful pouches containing nicotine. Pablo Klüppelberg developed the idea during an internship at a German player consultancy.

The investors

By closing the pre-seed financing round, the following investors with expertise in marketing, finance, sales, supply chain and product development come on board: Willy Umland (former VP at Wilson and Converse), Thomas Sailer (VP Brand Marketing at Adidas), Lucas Teuchner (Forbes 30under30, CEO of totally Mgmt and TwoSides), Arndt Wippert (former GM & Head of Sales at Philip Morris), Johannes Meyer (Training Scientist at the German Sport University Cologne), Christian Zott (Founder mSE Solutions), Florian Hoffmann (Investment Manager at Hillpoint Partners) and Stefan Bauer (Board Member of Philip Morris).

Brand launch planned for September

So far, W1NNAS has developed two performance pouches with different strengths and flavors, which are used exclusively by top athletes. The performance pouches are also expected to be launched on the market for amateur athletes in September of this year.