Birchbox Has A New Owner. Its Next Chapter: Healthcare.

Birchbox Has A New Owner. Its Next Chapter: Healthcare.

The subscription box company wants to collect more data to send personalized skincare, supplements and other products. A healthcare entrepreneur with backing from Walgreens, Unilever and Estee Lauder is buying Birchbox for more than $45 million, with plans to revitalize the subscription box company by getting into personalized health and wellness products. The company will begin asking its 300, 000-plus subscribers to share personal health information — collecting data through skin tests, for instance — and using it to zero in on relevant skincare, supplements and other products, like birth control or pregnancy tests. "We will have gathered information so you don't have to see thousands of products," says Kimon Angelides, who has a PhD in bio-organic chemistry and is executive chairman of FemTec Health, the newly-launched company that has acquired Birchbox. "We'll make suggestions on the things that match your biology and match your life stage." It's a new twist for Birchbox, and will see the departure of cofounder Katia Beauchamp as chief executive. She will sell her remaining interest in the company and become a strategic advisor. While Birchbox pioneered the subscription box trend when it launched its beauty offering in 2010, spurring a wave of similar offerings