Bowhead ICO Review - The Juicero of Vitamins?

Is Bowhead a cool blockchain supplement device? Or a fancy bluetooth vitamin dispenser that will face adoption hurdles like Juicero? This ICO analysis will help you find out.

This Series

A quick introduction. Although I got into blockchain just five months ago, I couldn't be more excited about the technology and the investment opportunities. 

With this series, I'll provide a deep evaluation of upcoming ICOs. For a taste of how I think, check out my valuation of Ether from June. I'm not a programmer or venture capitalist, but I love to research and analyze platforms. I'll do the leg work to help inform your investments. 

Because I'm a value investor, my recommendations will be based on buying tokens and holding them for years as the project matures. So, I won't analyze whether a token will be good for flipping. 

I'll rate the potential of an ICO via five categories - market, team, roadmap, competition, & ICO - and provide a score out of 100. If you're time crunched, you can skim the headings and read the "score" section. Let's get to it. 

Bowhead (Not the Whale)

The Bowhead team is building a consumer medical device that uses a blood or saliva sample to analyze biometrics like vitamin D, serotonin, and testosterone levels. Your data is put on a blockchain (they built on waves) and can be sent to doctors for consultations or it can be sold to researchers. 

The device also dispenses supplements, tracks your usage, gives you reminders to take them, etc. It's a smart device for personalized supplementation. This forbes article covers Bowhead's plans. 

Market (13/20 points) 

The blockchain is great for storing healthcare data. The data can be protected through encryption to dodge HIPAA and the transparency of blockchains should lower doctor communication errors. We are going to see tons of medical startups and platforms using the blockchain. However, medical data on the blockchain isn't the focus of Bowhead, it's the device and at home diagnostics.

Depending on the price point, there could be high demand for a device that can analyze vitamin and hormone levels and help individuals balance them. Personalization is the future of medicine, and the global supplement market is massive: projected to reach 220 billion in five years. 

However, it seems that Bowhead is overreaching by developing a complex device, mobile app and a blockchain platform. The pieces are complementary (if the device is popular, there will be serious network effects with the data), but trying to do too much can drown a young company. 

Despite the overly ambitious concept, the market is large and hits major trends. 13 points out of 20. 

Team (14/35) 

Teams make or break startups, so I made this the most heavily weighted category.

Dr. Rhea Matea is the CEO. She has a PhD in toxicology and her thesis was on the protective effects of B1 and B6 - a very  relevant background. For the past six years, she has been a wellness writer, but she has also cofounded a few small wellness projects: Camp Reset and Global Smoothie Day. That said, I'm dubious of her ability to lead a project of this scope.

Dr. Francisco Diaz-Mitoma is the Chairman. He is a doctor, professor and consultant and has had a long career, including being the chief medical official at VBI vaccines. It's unclear how involved he is in the project. 

Saúl Ibaven Bueno is the CTO. He has a degree in robotics and three years of software dev experience. Bowhead is not featured on his LinkedIn page.

Francisco Diaz-Mitoma Jr. is the Head of Product. And the son of Dr. Francisco. Impressively, he was named a Forbes 30 under 30. He has founded three other companies: an advertising platform, a neck wear company, and a facebook gaming company. He is currently the CEO of revenue.com. With his experience, I wish he was the CEO of Bowhead. Also, Bowhead is not mentioned on his LinkedIn page. He is the blockchain expert of the group.

David Bueno is the Head of Manufacturing, and has 2+ years of relevant design and manufacturing experience. 

The three person advisory team is solid, although not notable. It includes Raja Jindal who founded a healthcare diagnostics startup.

The team is strong and has relevant education and experience for the project. That said, I'd like to see a more experienced CEO, a clearer commitment from several of the members, and much greater blockchain experience. 14/35. 

Roadmap (7/15) 

Device: The team has a limited device prototype: it can manipulate the supplement capsules, connect to a smart phone and does minor analyzing of a test strip. The first investor (who put in $100K) is helping with the device assembly. 

Bowhead is partnering with a lab and manufacturing facility in SoCal to develop the biometric tests including Vitamin D, Cortisol and DHEA (biomarkers for stress), Malaria, Tuberculosis, and sex hormones. The facility makes pregnancy and fertility tests. No estimate for the test dev time was provided, and they expect a one year waiting period for the FDA to approve the tests. Effective biometric tests is a crux of this project, so I wish the whitepaper had gone into more depth.

Application: Bowhead hasn't done any dev on the mobile app, but its planned functionality is what you would expect: it accepts crypto/fiat, tracks supplements, gives reminders, has a chat with doctors system, one click ordering of supplements, etc.

Supplements: The planned supplements are Vitamin D, Probiotics (gut health), Curcumin (gut health, longevity), B-complex (0verall health) and a few more. Sourcing these should be easy. They are planning to price them at $29 a month per, or $129 for 6, premium pricing. This matches the functionality of the device, but it means traction will demand a great user experience and marketing. And without device adoption, this project doesn't get off the ground. 

They are hoping to ship the device with working remote diagnostics in the summer of 2018. Getting everything built and approved in a year is rather ambitious.

Blockchain: The white paper generally maps out how patient data can be sold to research institutions or pharmaceutical companies, per the patient's discretion. Or it can be used for doctor consultations. I would have liked   much more technical depth here. 

The device, application, & blockchain platform all have a long way to go. But most projects that ICO these days are at a very early stage. 7/15. 

Competition (10/15) 

Several notable platforms/startups are putting medical records on the blockchain. Patientory is using blockchain to  manage patient health histories and facilitate interaction with healthcare professionals. They just raised 7.2m in a token sale. Gem, a well established private company (not a distributed protocol), is doing the same thing.

There are also supplement dispensing devices like Pillo which raised 118K on kickstarter in 2016. There are also at home vitamin deficiency tests, like Vitameter. 

By combining a few popular health pieces - home diagnostics, smart supplements, and blockchain-based health data - Bowhead is carving out a niche. The big question is whether the combination of pieces will enable them to get quick adoption of their device. Regardless, its a unique play with no direct competition: 10/15.

ICO (2/15) 

ICO Basics:

• No US or Canadian Citizens (fire up your VPN if you live there and want to get in)
• Fixed supply of 100m tokens
• 40m tokens to distribute in exchange for future patient data, 1 yr lockup
• 2om for founding team and partners (Doctors, the lab partner, nodes)
• 40m (40%) for sale in the ICO
  • Implied cap of 24.1m USD
  • Strong discounts on the early pricing
• As of 6/20, three days in, they have raised ~$260,000
• Runs for a total of 45 days, ends 8/31/17
• Tokens available two weeks after the end of the ICO

Judging from press and social media, this ICO is generating a lot less interest than true blockchain ICOs. That may be a good thing. If the company raises a total of 500k, that's a healthy seed round. It should provide enough liquidity for serious progress while still allowing for plenty of growth upside in terms of market cap. 

Here's the issue: the token isn't tightly tied to the ecosystem. It only has value if the device gets a lot of adoption and many users want to sell their health data and that data is valuable to researchers. Its easy to come up with scenarios where all those conditions are not met. While the modest ICO size might be a bonus, the poorly integrated token is troubling. 2/15

Score (46/100)

There is plenty to like about Bowhead, but it faces serious challenges. Execution of the device/app/blockchain will be challenging, and while the team is solid and has relevant experience, it isn't exceptional. The large scope of the project means that the token isn't central, and that's a red flag in blockchain investing. With a score of 46, it's investable but make sure you believe in the team and see scenarios where the token can appreciate considerably.

Help a Brother Out!

I'd like to analyze all the major ICOs, but this amount of research and writing takes a lot of time and effort. If you liked this article, please upvote it and share it. If I earn some solid steem from it, I'll definitely keep these coming. Thanks in advance for your help!

Please share your thoughts and questions in the comments!