Quince

Aakash Gupta

@aakashgupta

Spouses of Alzheimer's patients are 6 times more likely to develop Alzheimer's themselves. They share daily saliva exchange for decades. Their oral bacteria converges to the same strains. In 2019 Cortexyme published a paper in Science Advances showing Porphyromonas gingivalis, the bacterium behind gum disease, was present in over 90% of postmortem Alzheimer's brains. They also found its DNA in the cerebrospinal fluid of living Alzheimer's patients. P. gingivalis is the keystone pathogen of periodontitis. The CDC says 47% of American adults over 30 have periodontitis right now. The mechanism is specific. P. gingivalis produces enzymes called gingipains. Two types: one cuts proteins at lysine residues, the other at arginine. Tau, the protein that holds your neuronal scaffolding together, is loaded with both amino acids. In cell culture, gingipains shred soluble tau within one hour of infection. The fragments seed the paired helical filaments that become tangles. Tangles are Alzheimer's. Mice fed P. gingivalis through the mouth grew amyloid plaques in their brains. Hippocampal neurons died. The bacteria crossed the blood-brain barrier and started chewing through the same proteins that fail in human Alzheimer's patients. Cortexyme built a drug called atuzaginstat to block gingipains. Phase 1 was clean. They ran a 643-patient Phase 2/3 trial called GAIN. The FDA hit it with a partial clinical hold for liver toxicity. The drug missed both primary endpoints. In August 2022 Cortexyme shut the program down, renamed itself Quince, and pivoted to bone disease. The subgroup with the highest baseline P. gingivalis loads still showed cognitive improvement on secondary endpoints. The bacteria itself kept showing up in postmortem brains across independent studies after the trial closed. Periodontal disease shows up 10 to 20 years before cognitive symptoms in people who later develop Alzheimer's. By the time someone forgets a name, the bacteria has been working for two decades. The intervention point is upstream of your skull.

Sheel Mohnot

@pitdesi

Brutal- Everlane was supposed to be the anti-SHEIN, now acquired by SHEIN for $100M It was a VC darling when it launched, raising from KP, Khosla, Maveron and others (~$145M raised) I think the bet was that consumers would pay more for ethical, sustainable basics, and that consumer may not really exist at venture scale. The low-end customer wants price. The high-end customer wants brand, taste, status. Everlane is kind of stuck in the middle. It sells “smart basics” at a premium, but I’m not sure people are willing to pay a significant premium for simple clothes over Quince, Uniqlo and Amazon. Maybe the real “radical transparency” was showing everyone how brutal fashion economics can be. Wonder what SHEIN does with it… Will they just make the same clothes in sweatshops now?

Alex Kolicich

@AlexKolicich

We wrote the first check into Quince and never shared our thesis publicly At the time, D2C was radioactive and 'affordable luxury' sounded like an oxymoron. Today they raised at $10B. We couldn't be more excited. Here's why we believed — and why we think it's still early! https://t.co/p1y8oeuzX7

Amanda Mull

@amandamull

I get more questions from friends and readers about Quince than about any other retailer. How is the cashmere that cheap? Why do they sell champagne? What are they up to? So today I tried to explain what Quince's endgame is. Gift link: https://t.co/1Mz3TmUK5B

Drew Fallon

@drewfallon12

QUINCE CROSSES $2B IN TTM SALES According to a report from WWD, Quince has passed $2 billion in ttm revenue, up from $1B+ for FY25. Triple-digit annual growth since founding in 2018. The factory-direct brand launched in 2019 with a $50 cashmere sweater and has expanded to 100+ categories using an AI-powered demand model that predicts weekly needs. This March, Quince closed a $500M Series E valued at $10.1B led by ICONIQ; up 2x from its previous series D valuation of $4.5B in July 2025 That means investors who paid something like 8x TTM sales in the Series D ended up paying just 2x NTM sales - talk about underwriting! Quince has raised a total of around $960M raised. The company declined to comment on future IPO plans but i am officially begging Previous round valued the company for $10.1B at over 10x revenue at the time. H1 2026 shows signs of continued growth, a reasonable valuation could fall in the $15B to $17B range at 7-8x this new $2B ttm sales figure. Worth noting, DTC fashion brand Reformation filed to go public last month

Roman Khan

@RomanEcom

I went back on the Operators Pod to talk about: - Why I paused buying companies - Where I think eCom is headed - What I learned from my semi-annual event - How to scale $APP to $100K+++ a day - Where Quince Logistics is going (9 figure year 1) - Why I started a packaging business called Petra Spark (8 figure run rate pipeline) - Where AI is taking eCommerce A lot of topics that I have not talked about on other Pods. I’ll answer any questions in the YouTube comment section - just leave them there

Allyssa Rapp

Head of Partnerships & Collaborations

Previously at PUMA Group · Los Angeles, California, United States

Joined Jun 2026

Jeremiah Morris

Head of Global Procurement - Apparel, Activewear, Intimates, K&B, and Footwear

Previously at Deckers Brands · Los Angeles, California, United States

Joined May 2026

Previously at Collectors · New York, New York, United States

Joined Jun 2026

Previously at Grocery Outlet · San Francisco, California, United States

Joined May 2026