Dune
- Acquired
- October 5, 2021, 50.4% for stock
- Founders
- Tom Punch, Stephanie Roy Dufault and Mark De Luca
- Bottles sold
- 100,000+ by May 2022
- Retail
- Urban Outfitters, Erewhon Market, Equinox
- Status
- Exited with Creatd's packaged goods division, 2023
Dune Glow Remedy is a beauty drink: a functional beverage made to be good for skin, sold by subscription and through Urban Outfitters, Erewhon and Equinox. Creatd bought a majority in 2021 for stock and took it from launch to 100,000 bottles and 130 stores in under a year.
What Dune does
Dune Glow Remedy is a direct-to-consumer wellness beverage brand. Its drinks are formulated with functional ingredients intended to support skin from the inside; the founders' shorthand for it was Botox in a bottle. The brand launched in August 2021 into the beauty-from-within segment of the functional drinks market, sold first through its own site and subscriptions, then through retailers. It was designed to look as good as it claimed to make you look: Urban Outfitters, when it took the brand on, cited the taste, the ingredients and the packaging.
Dune was founded by Tom Punch, Stephanie Roy Dufault and Mark De Luca. Punch had spent a decade in creator businesses, most recently in partnerships and corporate development at WatchMojo; Roy Dufault had a decade in beauty and fashion communications and brand partnerships.
Why Creatd bought it
Creatd had just proved with Plant Camp that it could launch a consumer brand quickly using its own design, data and marketing teams. Dune was the second brand, and it came with an operator. Creatd signed a memorandum of understanding in August 2021 for 50.4% of Dune, and Punch joined Creatd as chief executive of Creatd Ventures, the company's e-commerce arm, with responsibility for Dune and every other brand in the portfolio. Creatd's stated reasons were the usual ones: Vocal's network and first-party data to find and reach the right consumers, shared logistics, and a subscription model that fit the other brands. Punch put it the other way round: with Creatd's resources, a founder could cut the cost and time to market and reach customers faster.
The purchase closed on October 5, 2021, for Creatd common stock. Creatd began consolidating Dune's revenue from that date.
What happened under Creatd
Dune got attention early. In November 2021 Access Hollywood taste-tested the drinks on air in a segment on snack trends; by then more than 650 cases had gone out through influencer gifting and sales. Retail followed in 2022. Urban Outfitters added Dune to its spring and summer beauty and wellness assortment in April 2022 and sold out its first order online in under two weeks. Erewhon Market, the Los Angeles grocer, put Dune in all its stores in May 2022. On May 23, 2022 Creatd reported that Dune had sold more than 100,000 bottles since launch and that Urban Outfitters' third and largest order would place it in more than 130 stores across the country, the brand's first national shelf presence. In September 2022 Dune ran a sampling and subscription event at Equinox's New York flagship.
Dune also pulled the other brands along. Punch said the retail and wholesale relationships Dune opened, at Erewhon, Pod Foods and Urban Outfitters, were being used to place Camp and Basis, and Creatd's August 2022 update on Amazon sales covered all four Ventures brands. In August 2022 Creatd signed a memorandum of understanding to raise its stake in Dune from 50.4% to 70% for about $360,000 in Creatd stock at $1.32 a share, priced above market.
What Creatd learned
Dune showed that Creatd's audience tools could get a new consumer brand into national retail within a year. It also showed what a packaged beverage costs to make, ship and stock, and Creatd's Ventures portfolio as a whole did not earn the margins the company wanted. In 2023 Creatd exited its consumer packaged goods division to focus on technology and services. Dune's time under Creatd is listed in the Form S-1 as 2020 to 2023.
Where it stands
Creatd's Form S-1 lists Dune among its past acquisitions and does not state its current status. This page describes the brand as it was built and operated under Creatd.
Timeline
- Apr. 2022
- Launches at Urban Outfitters
- Sept. 2022
- Equinox flagship event
Sources: Form S-1 filed September 15, 2026, and Creatd press releases from August 2021 to November 2023, all in News.
