Developed by Hong Kong’s Prenetics and the former footballer, IM8 emphasises transparency and third-party testing with its 92‑ingredient formula
For the last year or so, there’s been a sleek, red, octagonal vessel seeking pride of place on your supplements shelf, targeted at replacing all your daily veggie caps in one aesthetically pleasing fell swoop. It’s called IM8, and it is the biggest disrupter the supplements industry has seen in a long time: an all-in-one powdered product that mixes with water to deliver a blend of 92 ingredients at clinically effective dosages designed to boost your health – from vitamins and minerals to adaptogens, probiotics, electrolytes and amino acids.
What makes IM8 even more of a golden child are its credentials. Hong Kong’s Prenetics – along with a certain David Beckham – have founded a brand, IM8 Health, to market the supplement. It boasts an advisory board stacked with academics and experts from the likes of Mayo Clinic and Nasa to oversee certification and transparency, with third-party testing of all ingredients from the get-go and full details of its US manufacturer, Vitaquest.
IM8’s third-party-tested supplement is available in single-serve packs. Photo: Handout
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Though Prenetics built its name on DNA testing that feeds into a preventive healthcare approach and grew substantially during Covid by meeting a market opportunity for Covid-19 testing (at one point handling up to 40,000 tests per day), its co-founder, Danny Yeung, has his focus almost entirely on IM8 these days.
A serial entrepreneur raised in California’s Bay Area, Yeung famously cold-called Hui Lau Shan when he was just 15 years old, franchising the Chinese fruit desserts shop for the San Francisco market. He has also had a furniture export business servicing hotels, and before launching Prenetics, moved to Hong Kong to spearhead a group-buy platform that he eventually sold to Groupon. But while his philosophy has largely been to build it and sell it, there’s something about IM8 that is keeping him hooked.
Prenetics co-founder Danny Yeung. Photo: Jocelyn Tam
“It’s in my personality. I love learning new things – to research, read about it, know all the ins and outs of the industry, talk to industry experts,” says Yeung. “I like the act of product creation. And I like to see the journey from zero to one, because I think that in business, that is actually the most difficult. Once you’ve already got to one, the next step, from one to 10, is actually much easier.
“But now … with what I’ve seen in terms of our growth trajectory, I want to take this from one to 10, which is a unique opportunity for myself, the team and our investors and partners – like David Beckham and Aryna Sabalenka [the world No 1 tennis player who became an investor-partner after using and becoming a fan of the product].”
With the interplay of wellness and longevity becoming only ever more important to people across the world, Yeung notes that creating IM8 was perhaps fuelled by insights that he had from running Prenetics for the last 10 years or so, but that it was also simply a case of understanding the problem and then going out and solving it. “Actually, everyone told me not to get into [the supplements industry],” he says. The low barriers to entry meant that the market was already supersaturated, but with many of the suppliers and brands ultimately lacking credibility and ethics.
Danny Yeung at the Prenetics office in Hong Kong. Photo: Jocelyn Tam
