You never know who you're going to meet in your first year of college, or where that friendship will lead.
For two Robertson scholars who graduated from Duke and UNC in 2017, the answer became a thriving business partnership and a fast-growing "sweat control brand" that was acquired last week by a private equity firm.
Carpe, the company Kasper Kubica of Duke and David Spratte of UNC started, now has a line of antiperspirants for different parts of the body, sold through their website mycarpe.com. Starting from an antiperspirant for hands, the company now makes scalp antiperspirants, sweat-stopping SPF 30 makeup, and many more products for a condition called hyperhidrosis - super sweatiness.
The terms of Carpe's acquisition by a private equity firm called Topspin were not disclosed, but the transaction earned Carpe's startup investors a payday and now gives the company the financial muscle to try to put their products on store shelves.
"I think 85% of our customers say they want to purchase us in retail," Kubica said. "More than 90% of deodorant sales happen in retail because people want to take the top off and smell it and, see what they're buying." That doesn't mean Carpe will be opening deodorant boutiques in major malls, but they do hope to be on the shelves at Walmart or Target someday soon.
It all started from a discussion the two had while living together on a Robertson Scholars program in New Orleans in the summer of 2014. The Robertson Scholarship is a merit award with leadership training that makes students 'dual citizens' of both campuses.
The young men realized they both had an issue with clammy, sweaty hands and began to wonder if there was a solution.
"There were a lot of hand antiperspirants, but they were rated one star," said Kubica, who frequently stars in the company's Instagram videos. "When we started looking into it, we ordered these products and it turned out they were all very greasy."
The secret sauce of Carpe's product is that it has a less greasy base for carrying the active ingredients. "It took us a year and 60 prototypes," he said. "We had a formula that was really good at reducing hand sweat, and when you put it on, it left no residue."
He doesn't always use the hand product himself, but "I always wear Carpe underarm on one armpit and something else on the other armpit, just to see the difference with the other products," Kubica said.
Kubica, who came to Duke knowing he wanted to be an entrepreneur, joined a selective living group for like-minded undergrads and started bouncing Spratte's hand antiperspirant idea off professors and mentors. He was majoring in physics and computer science, "but through it all, my philosophy was to learn the hard sciences in college and then learn business by doing." He also participated in the non-credit Melissa & Doug Entrepreneurs program founded by Duke alumni Melissa and Doug Bernstein.
"This is a Duke success story," said Kurt Schmidt, managing director of Duke Capital Partners. "Kasper and David have been helped by Duke alumni to grow a successful company. Collectively, the individuals who constitute Carpe's board, board observers, and advisors have earned 11 degrees from Duke."
"I now know a lot of other Duke founders," Kubica said. "I just met so many founders (at Duke), and I realized the entrepreneurship community here is actually quite strong. This has only been possible because of David, because of the mentors, and because of the team."
The friends and co-founders will continue running the company together out of a downtown Durham office, with warehouses and order fulfillment centers also in North Carolina. The products are produced by six different contract manufacturers, all in the U.S., and the Carpe team has now grown to 25 people. "Nothing changes; he and I are still running the company," Kubica said.
Their skills, like their friendship, meld well. "I'm a lot better at design. David is a lot better at sales. I'm a lot better at operations and finance type things. And David's a lot better at pushing those things and motivating people to get things done well."
The antiperspirant business is "not something that I thought was going to become my passion," Kubica said. "But I knew right away that David and I worked together incredibly, like almost no one I've met in my entire life, and I think that's such a rare partnership; to find someone who you work with so incredibly well that you feel like you can create 10 times as much when you're working with them."
