The San Diego-based company has sold over 100 million liquid liposomal supplement packets worldwide across categories including energy, fitness, brain and gut health, backed by a large and growing subscription base that includes celebrities like Gunna, The Weeknd and the Jonas Brothers.
If social media is any indication of success, the company has nearly half a million followers on Instagram alone.
Reaching scale through credibility
Originally created by entrepreneur and health enthusiast Chervin Jafarieh in 2018, Cymbiotika welcomed husband-and-wife team Shahab and Durana Elmi as CEO and COO cofounders in 2019.
“That first scrappy year was not about scaling fast but was about building credibility, proving there was real demand and reinvesting every bit of early revenue back into the business,” Shahab said.
Under the Elmis leadership, the company expanded from one employee and a single DHA omega-3 product into a business achieving 700% year-over-year growth.
The founders attribute this success to product focus paired with strong customer retention driven by subscriptions and a tightly controlled operating model, where marketing, fulfillment, technology and customer support are kept in-house to maintain speed, consistency and agility.
Shahab holds a PhD in organizational leadership from Vanderbilt University and is a serial entrepreneur. Prior to Cymbiotika, he launched and exited three businesses: online radio DASH/DASH International, KNK Group (a Cricket wireless national dealer with 172 stores in six states) and Day Group (which sold customizable phone cases and sold for an eight-figure sum 26 months after founding). As Cymbiotika’s COO, Durana has been named to a number of influential business leader lists and is branching into fashion and content creation as part of her personal “high-fashion wellness” brand.
The one-employee operation has grown into a team of over 100 employees, with a full line of innovative liposomal supplements. Late last year, Cymbiotika hit another milestone when it launched a selection of 12-count “rip and sip” supplement boxes into nearly 2,000 Target stores, establishing itself as the retailer’s only liposomal brand. Top-performing products across outlets include liposomal glutathione, liposomal vitamin C and magnesium in the brand’s signature squeeze packets. Most recently, Cymbiotika tapped into the emerging on-the-go creatine trend, introducing a single-serve, liquid formula at the start of the year that pairs liposomal delivery with CreaBev creatine monohydrate.
Shahab also credits Cymbiotika’s rise to a commitment to ingredient purity and traceability, ease of adherence and rigorous testing for safety and efficacy—all main tenants that align with the modern wellness consumer.
“These products consistently drive strong repeat purchase behavior because of the three things we always deliver on: products that work, are convenient for everyday use and are backed by science,” he said.
Notably, scale was achieved scale while remaining fully bootstrapped for the first five years, reaching $150 million in revenue by late 2025. In November, Cymbiotika raised its first external funding through a $25-million, celebrity-backed seed round led by hospitality mogul David Grutman that featured a long-list of A-listers across music, culture, business and sports.
Doubling down on liposomes
Key to the Cymbiotika brand is its use of liposomal delivery, featuring a patented micelle/liposomal system designed to enhance nutrient absorption and bioavailability.
Liposomes—which are tiny phospholipid vessels—can protect certain nutrients and phytonutrients as they pass through the GI tract and support more efficient uptake compared to traditional formats like pills, gummies and dry beverage mixes.
Shahab said that as advances in high-shear mixing and homogenization now allow for tighter control of particle-size distribution and enable greater stability and reliability. Phospholipids and emulsifiers have become cleaner and more standardized, improving membrane integrity.
“Better analytical testing also allows us to verify identity, purity, oxidation risk and shelf stability instead of relying on assumptions,” Shahab added. “At Cymbiotika, we’ve invested deeply in R&D and quality systems so we can scale while maintaining consistency and performance.”
This includes investments in tools like in-process quality controls, stability and stress testing, and packaging designed to limit oxygen and moisture exposure. Cymbiotika says it has also developed internal processes through years of formulation work, particularly around low water activity emulsion systems that protect sensitive actives without synthetic preservatives. Liposomal and advanced emulsion systems are capital-intensive and require specialized processing equipment, controlled manufacturing environments, repeated pilot runs and extensive testing for stability and quality.
All that technicality can be overwhelming for customers, so Cymbiotika emphasizes the “why” behind the formulation, not just the ingredient, helping people understand the reason delivery matters to “empower them to make informed decision and build long-term trust,” Shahab said.
Cymbiotika is also funding a double-blind, crossover clinical study to compare the absorption of its liposomal vitamin D3 + K2 and glutathione + PQQ formulations with other supplement forms. The investigation—a collaboration with The University of Queensland and clinical research organization RDC Global, Australia—is expected to be complete in June.
Integrating wellness into culture
Cymbiotika does not only embrace cultural trends, it helps to define them by tapping into local community actions and by cultivating key celebrity endorsements.
As part of the Target launch, it kicked off a Wellness Tour in Minneapolis with Minnesota Timberwolves forward Julius Randle and former Minnesota Vikings tight end Kyle Rudolph. Rapper Gunna, who is on Cymbiotika’s roster of investors, also regularly promotes the brand on social media and through his “Wunna Run Club” events.
Co-founder Jafarieh’s ‘Wake The Fake Up’ podcast reaches an additional audience, airing 60-to 90-minute interviews with top athletes and experts in the fields of eastern and western medicine, biochemistry, epigenetics, physiology and plant medicine, among other topics.
“We shifted from a company that was a supplement brand, to a lifestyle brand,” Durana said on the With Whit Podcast, hosted by Whitney Port, who came to prominence in the 2000s as a member of the MTV reality series The Hills. “It’s all encompassing living a healthy lifestyle. It’s not just taking supplements. But how are you really living?”
That lifestyle is reflected at Cymbiotika headquarters in San Diego, a location that Durana told Port was not a place of work but a destination. Designed to feel more like a wellness retreat, it features minimalist, lounge-style décor accented with living green walls and tropical plants, and communal spaces that encourage connection through amenities like game tables. Between 2021 and 2023, Cymbiotika earned a spot on Fortune’s Best Workplaces in Retail and was named to the San Diego Business Journal’s Best Places to Work in 2024.
The company also established an outpost in the Fontainebleau Las Vegas Promenade food hall with the September opening of the Cymbiotika Wellness Bar. Described in a press release as “an influencer-favorite wellness destination,” it features “nutrient-rich smoothies, juices, salads and wraps infused with Cymbiotika’s premium supplements” and limited-edition smoothies created in collaboration with the likes of Mexican singer and rapper Peso Pluma, who is also an investor.
“For me, it’s all about balance, keeping the mind sharp and the energy high,” Pluma said in a statement about the smoothie collaboration. “That’s why creating this smoothie with Cymbiotika felt natural. It tastes amazing and gives you that boost you need before the gym, before a show, or just to kick off your day with good energy.”
Shahab said collaborations like those with Pluma reflect Cymbiotika’s long-term vision—to integrate wellness into culture in ways that inspire the next generation to prioritize health, performance and longevity.
