High Transparency Momentous is the direct counter-example to AG1 and David in the Traced database — same category, same audience, opposite approach to scientific backing, transparency, and endorser relationships.
Traced Database/Green Benchmark / Science-First

Momentous

Performance Protein & Supplements,
"Live Great. Perform Better."

Traced Assessment

Momentous operates in the same market as AG1 and David — premium performance supplements sold to health-optimizing, high-income consumers through the same podcast ecosystem and the same influencer channels. The difference is in every structural choice that market allows but does not require. Where AG1 uses proprietary blends to hide individual doses, Momentous publishes every ingredient at its exact amount. Where David relies on collagen protein to inflate its headline number, Momentous uses whey protein isolate and pea protein — complete proteins with peer-reviewed backing. Where AG1 and David have equity-holding endorsers whose financial interest and promotional role are inseparable, Momentous has worked with Andrew Huberman as a paid collaborator — but with disclosed relationships, no undisclosed equity, and a product formulated with the input of independent sports scientists. Where David carries no third-party safety certification, Momentous holds NSF Certified for Sport status and publishes batch-level certificates of analysis. The two yellow scores in this profile are honest ones: Momentous uses a DTC subscription model and has raised VC funding whose full investor table is not public. These are real, if minor, transparency gaps. They do not change the fundamental picture: in a category defined by manufactured credibility and obscured ingredients, Momentous has chosen a different model — and the model works on its own terms.

01Ownership StructureYellow

Momentous was founded in 2018 by Jeff Byers and Mark Oliveira. The company has raised venture capital — an estimated $50M+ across multiple rounds from investors including Founders Fund and a16z's consumer arm. The company is privately held. The full investor roster and capitalization table are not publicly disclosed.

The yellow score is honest: Traced cannot fully evaluate what we cannot see. The partial investor table, while consistent with standard startup practice, creates the same opacity that makes the Chobani $650M raise a yellow flag. The specific investors matter because their incentives shape the pressure the company faces at the moment of exit — IPO, acquisition, or secondary sale. Founders Fund (Peter Thiel's firm) and a16z are sophisticated investors who will seek significant returns. The question of whether those return expectations will eventually pressure Momentous toward the sourcing, formulation, or subscription extraction patterns visible elsewhere in this database is not answerable yet. The score reflects the uncertainty, not a finding.

What Yellow Here Means
This yellow is different in character from the yellows in most Traced profiles. It is not a finding of current compromise — it is an acknowledgment that the ownership structure is not fully visible, and that the same investor pressure that has compromised other brands in this database is structurally present. Momentous has not yet faced the inflection point where those pressures typically manifest. The score will be updated as the ownership picture becomes clearer.
02Marketing Incentive AlignmentGreen

This is the dimension where Momentous most directly contrasts with AG1 and David — and where the contrast is sharpest. Momentous has relationships with Andrew Huberman and other high-profile health communicators. What makes those relationships structurally different is the disclosure and equity question.

Huberman's relationship with Momentous has been disclosed as a paid partnership and collaborative formulation arrangement — not undisclosed equity. Momentous credits named sports scientists and researchers in their formulation process and publishes the scientific rationale for each product's ingredient choices. The distinction between "paid to develop and promote" versus "equity holder who promotes" is material under FTC guidelines, and Momentous appears to be on the right side of that line.

Dimension
AG1
David
Momentous
Endorser relationship
Equity + paid sponsor. Undisclosed equity.
Equity + paid sponsor. Equity not prominently disclosed.
Paid collaboration. No reported equity. Disclosed relationship.
Ingredient doses
75 ingredients, majority undisclosed doses. Proprietary blend.
Collagen/whey ratio not disclosed. Total protein only.
All ingredients disclosed at exact doses.
Third-party testing
NSF sport certified. No public batch COAs.
Not NSF certified. No batch COAs.
NSF Certified for Sport. Batch COAs published.
Protein source
AG1 contains protein but not marketed as a protein supplement
Collagen primary. PDCAAS ~0. Undisclosed blend ratio.
Whey isolate + pea protein. PDCAAS 1.0. Complete amino profile.
Price per serving
$2.63/day (subscription). Comparable stack ~$0.80.
$3.50–4.00/bar.
~$2.50/serving. Premium but aligned with ingredient quality.

The green score for marketing alignment reflects that Momentous has made the harder structural choice available to any brand in this space: treating the endorser relationship as a paid professional collaboration rather than an equity vehicle for conflating financial interest with independent recommendation.

03Revenue ModelYellow

Momentous sells primarily through its DTC website with a subscription option offering 15–20% discount on recurring orders, and through retail partners including REI, Whole Foods, and various specialty sports retailers. The subscription model is more aggressive than Salt & Straw's optional pint club — auto-renewal, email campaigns to reduce churn, and subscription-specific pricing that creates friction around cancellation.

The yellow score reflects that the subscription mechanic is real and creates lock-in pressure, even if it is less extractive than AG1's model. At $2.50/serving for protein powder on subscription, the pricing is also premium relative to comparable products (Transparent Labs, Thorne, NOW Sports all offer comparable quality at lower price points). The premium is partially justified by the NSF certification costs and the ingredient sourcing — but the DTC subscription pricing also reflects brand premium and marketing costs that the consumer is absorbing.

This is a genuine yellow, not a courtesy yellow. Momentous could offer the same product on a purely transactional basis at lower prices. It has chosen the DTC subscription model because it improves LTV metrics and supports VC return expectations. That incentive is real even when the product is good.

04Ingredient IntegrityGreen

Momentous Whey Protein Isolate ingredients: Whey Protein Isolate, Sunflower Lecithin, Natural Flavors, Monk Fruit Extract. Four ingredients. Every one serves an identifiable function. The protein source is whey isolate — PDCAAS 1.0, complete essential amino acid profile, high leucine content for muscle protein synthesis. No collagen dilution, no proprietary blend obscuring the protein quality question.

Momentous also manufactures a plant-based option using pea protein isolate — PDCAAS 0.89, complete enough for the purpose, appropriate for non-dairy consumers. The plant protein is not marketed with the same muscle-building emphasis as the whey; the brand is accurate about the relative performance of each.

The broader supplement line — creatine, magnesium threonate, omega-3s, vitamin D3+K2 — follows the same pattern: single or few ingredients at disclosed doses, no proprietary blends, no pixie dusting.

What "Disclosed Doses" Actually Means
Momentous creatine monohydrate: 5g per serving — the exact dose used in the clinical studies establishing creatine's efficacy for strength and muscle mass. Momentous magnesium L-threonate: 144mg elemental magnesium per serving, sourced from Magtein (the patented form with blood-brain-barrier crossing research). These are not round numbers chosen for label aesthetics — they are clinical doses chosen because the evidence supports them. This is what evidence-based formulation looks like in practice, and it is directly contrasted with the pixie dusting visible in AG1's 75-ingredient proprietary blend.
05Scientific BackingGreen

Momentous publishes ingredient-level scientific rationale for every product in its line. Each product page links to the peer-reviewed studies supporting the ingredient choice and dose selection. This is not marketing decoration — the citations are real papers, the doses match the studied doses, and the claims stay within what the evidence supports.

The company has formal scientific advisory relationships with researchers including Dr. Andy Galpin (performance physiologist, Cal State Fullerton) and has collaborated with sports scientists at the NFL, NBA, and US Special Operations Command on product development. These are credentialed domain experts with published research records — a meaningful distinction from equity-holding podcasters whose scientific authority derives from audience trust rather than peer-reviewed output.

No clinical trials have been conducted on Momentous products as complete formulations — this is standard for the supplement industry and is not a specific failure. The green score reflects the scientific integrity of the ingredient selection and dose rationale, not the existence of product-level clinical trials.

06Label Claim AccuracyGreen

Every ingredient is disclosed by name and dose. No proprietary blends. No hidden dose ranges. No claim that exceeds what the disclosed ingredient at its disclosed dose can support in the peer-reviewed literature. No FDA enforcement actions. No FTC complaints. No class action litigation around labeling.

Momentous's NSF Certified for Sport certification adds an additional layer of label accuracy verification: the certification requires that what is on the label is what is in the product, and that nothing is in the product that isn't on the label — specifically including substances banned in competitive sport. The certification is not a claim that the product works as marketed; it is a claim that the product contains what it says it contains. That narrower but verifiable claim is more valuable than broader efficacy marketing that cannot be independently verified.

07Safety TransparencyGreen

NSF Certified for Sport is the most rigorous third-party certification available for sports nutrition supplements in the United States. It requires annual facility audits, lot-by-lot testing for label accuracy and banned substance contamination, and a master list of certified products updated in real time. Momentous publishes lot-specific certificates of analysis for its products — meaning a consumer can verify the actual test results for the specific lot of protein powder they purchased.

Third-Party Certifications — Momentous
NSF Certified for Sport
Annual facility audit + lot-by-lot testing. Screens for 270+ substances banned in competitive sport. Label accuracy verified independently.
✓ Active — verified on NSF database
Batch COAs (Certificates of Analysis)
Third-party lab results published per lot. Consumers can verify their specific product's actual test results. Not standard practice in the supplement industry.
✓ Published publicly at momentouslabs.com
Informed Sport (select products)
UK-based certification. Additional manufacturing standard verification for products sold in international markets.
✓ Select products
cGMP Manufacturing
FDA Current Good Manufacturing Practice compliance. Standard requirement, but compliance is not universal in the supplement industry.
✓ Confirmed

The contrast with David is instructive and intentional. David markets to the same performance-oriented, athlete-adjacent consumer. David has no NSF certification, no published batch COAs, and uses erythritol as its primary sweetener without communicating the emerging cardiovascular risk literature to its audience. Momentous and David are not equivalent products presented as equivalent — they are structurally different responses to the same market opportunity.

Sources & Documentation
NSF International — Certified for Sport DatabaseMomentous confirmed on NSF Certified for Sport registry. nsf.org/certified-sports. Lot-by-lot testing protocol documentation.
Momentous product pages / COA portalIngredient lists, doses, scientific citations, and batch certificates of analysis. momentouslabs.com
Witard et al., Journal of Nutrition, 2014Leucine threshold for muscle protein synthesis. Basis for whey vs. collagen comparison in ingredient integrity dimension.
FAO/WHO PDCAAS methodologyProtein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score. Whey isolate 1.0, collagen ~0. Tryptophan-based scoring.
Dr. Andy Galpin — published research recordPerformance physiology, exercise science. Cal State Fullerton. Momentous scientific advisor. Google Scholar profile verifiable.
Magtein (MgT-7) clinical dataLiu et al. published studies on magnesium L-threonate and cognitive function. Basis for Momentous Mag-3 formulation dose selection.
FTC Endorsement Guidelines, 202316 CFR Part 255. Paid collaboration disclosure vs. equity disclosure requirements. Momentous relationships evaluated against this standard.
Creatine monohydrate meta-analysisLanhers et al., European Journal of Sport Science, 2017. 5g/day dose established as effective for strength and MPS outcomes.