Why Cristiano Ronaldo’s $7.5m Herbalife AI Bet Signals the Future of Personalised Nutrition

Quick Answer: Cristiano Ronaldo has invested $7.5 million for a 10% equity stake in HBL Pro2col Software, a Herbalife subsidiary that operates an AI-driven personalised wellness platform. The deal deepens a partnership that began in 2013 and marks Ronaldo’s second significant technology investment in three months, following his stake in AI search company Perplexity. Pro2col is currently in beta across the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico, with European expansion planned for later in 2026.

Cristiano Ronaldo has been Herbalife’s global nutrition partner for over a decade. Now he is a part-owner. The 41-year-old announced on 18 February that he had acquired a 10% equity stake in HBL Pro2col Software, an indirect subsidiary of Herbalife (NYSE: HLF) that houses the company’s next-generation digital wellness technology. The investment was worth $7.5 million — valuing the subsidiary at $75 million — and came alongside commitments to provide services and sponsorship rights to the platform.

Pro2col is Herbalife’s attempt to reinvent itself for an era in which nutrition advice is expected to be personalised, data-driven, and delivered through a screen. The platform uses individual health data — from user inputs, wearable devices, and DNA analysis — to build tailored wellness plans with daily habits and smart nutrition tracking. At its core is Pro2Score, a proprietary wellness scoring system that tracks progress across key metrics.

The technology did not originate inside Herbalife. The company acquired the underlying assets from Pro2col Health LLC and Pruvit Ventures in April 2025, paying milestone-linked contingency fees as the platform hit development targets. By December 2025, Pro2col Beta 2.0 had launched in the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Herbalife has confirmed plans to expand beta access to select European markets later this year.

Why Ronaldo, and Why Now

For Ronaldo, the deal extends a relationship that already includes the Herbalife24 CR7 Drive sports drink and years of brand ambassadorship. But it also fits a pattern that has accelerated sharply. In December 2025, he invested in Perplexity AI, the search engine startup valued at $20 billion and backed by Nvidia and Jeff Bezos. Before that, his portfolio had been largely confined to Portuguese ventures — hotels, gyms, a media business, and the 2024 acquisition of the Lisboa Racket Centre.

The Herbalife investment is different in character. It is not a brand deal repackaged as equity. At $7.5 million for 10%, Ronaldo is buying a meaningful stake in a specific technology at a specific valuation, with financial upside tied directly to Pro2col’s commercial success. If the platform scales across Herbalife’s network of two million distributors in more than 90 countries, that $75 million valuation could look conservative. If it stalls in beta, the investment remains a relatively modest outlay for a man whose net worth sits at approximately $1.4 billion.

Herbalife CEO Stephan Gratziani framed the deal as a milestone, describing Ronaldo’s decision to take an ownership stake as reflecting “a shared belief in the power of nutrition, data, AI, and personalised insights to drive better health outcomes.” Ronaldo, for his part, called the investment “a natural evolution” of a relationship built on trust and shared ambition.

Herbalife’s Bigger Bet

The Ronaldo announcement was timed to coincide with Herbalife’s fourth-quarter earnings, which beat guidance across key metrics. Revenue rose 6.3% year-on-year to $1.3 billion, exceeding the top end of the company’s own projections. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $156 million, also above expectations. The stock surged roughly 18% in the immediate aftermath, though analysts noted that much of the rally had been building throughout a 2025 in which shares gained over 90%.

The results revealed a company in transition. North America delivered its second consecutive quarter of double-digit new distributor growth, up 19% year-on-year. Latin America posted its seventh straight quarter of growth. But China — historically a critical market — declined 6% in local currency terms, with volume down 11%. Management said no recovery is expected before 2027.

Pro2col sits at the centre of Herbalife’s strategy to navigate this uneven landscape. The company is positioning itself as what Gratziani called “a more connected, data-driven health and wellness platform” — integrating products, community, AI, and digital tools to support its distributor model rather than replace it. The platform equips distributors with insights and engagement tools that Herbalife hopes will improve retention and attract a younger, more digitally native customer base.

Management guidance for 2026 is cautiously optimistic: revenue growth of 1% to 6%, with full-year EBITDA of $690 million at the midpoint. Notably, current projections include minimal revenue contribution from Pro2col — the company is treating the platform as upside rather than baking it into baseline expectations.

The Wider Trend

Ronaldo is not the only elite athlete moving capital into personalised health technology. But what distinguishes his approach is scale. With over one billion social media followers, his endorsement carries distribution power that most venture capital firms cannot replicate — and Herbalife, with its distributor-led model, is uniquely positioned to convert that visibility into platform adoption.

Whether Pro2col delivers on its promise remains to be seen. The personalised wellness space is crowded, and Herbalife’s direct-selling model carries baggage that some consumers will never look past. But with Ronaldo’s name, money, and image now directly tied to the platform’s success, the incentives are aligned in ways that a standard sponsorship deal never could achieve.