Nourishing Innovation: 5 Tech Startups Rethinking Health

We all know this phrase: “You are what we eat.” Although we all want to be healthy and in good relationships with our bodies, we continue to feed them with things we don’t want to look like.??

According to the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, nearly 90% of Americans consume too much sodium, and about $173 billion is annually spent on the medical treatment of obesity.

We must rethink our nutrition and overall health to live happily ever after. And someone is already doing that for us —?the nutrition tech startups. They’re transforming the health industry by integrating technology into nutrition.

Let’s see how!

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ZOE

Company’s website: https://joinzoe.com/

Co-Founder & CEO: Jonathan Wolf

Co-Founder: George Hadjigeorgiou

Scientific Co-Founder: Tim Spector

Lead Investors: Flight Fund, Accomplice, Tim Kendall.

Total funding amount: $79.5M

The US-based startup ZOE was founded in 2017. It’s a custom nutrition program designed to improve people’s health worldwide.?

Its work is entirely based on nutrition-science studies in collaboration with top medical research institutes like Stanford Medicine, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and others.

Let’s see how ZOE works:

• Users receive at-home tests for analyzing gut bacteria, blood sugar, and blood fats available.?
• ZOE app rates each food (from 0-100) based on the test results. It’s for your further better choices of healthier foods.
• Users learn new food combinations and habits within the app for the best nutrition for their bodies.
• ZOE provides you with individual results and meal scores to track your progress and get recommendations.

Above all, users get access to special lessons made by top scientists. Also, they can talk to ZOE food health experts in real-time chat.

What we like the most about it:

ZOE isn’t about restrictions and counting calories. It’s about improving your health by creating a healthier gut microbiome.?

Also, according to their website, ZOE has its own podcast, the #1 health podcast in the UK. In this podcast, top world science minds discuss and explain how their research can impact and improve our health.

Care/of

Company’s website: https://takecareof.com/

CEO & Co-Founder: Craig Elbert

Co-Founder & CPO/CTO: Akash Shah

Lead Investors: Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, Goodwater Capital, Juxtapose.?

Total funding amount: $82.9M

Founded in 2016, a NY-based Care/of is a health tech company focused on making health stuff easy for people.?

They've created a vitamin pack wholly tailored to each of its customers and delivered monthly. The content of this pack is based on consumers' body indicators, lifestyle, and health goals they want to achieve.?

Care/of offers you to take the quiz to provide personal health information needed for further developing nutrition recommendations and vitamin packs. Their app allows users to build new nutrition habits to improve their health.

In 2020, Bayer acquired the majority (70%) stake in Care/of.

Here is a comment from a Bayer spokeswoman: "Together we plan to grow the Care/of business across new channels, new categories and new markets to deliver even more personalized nutrition."

What we like the most about it:

Care/of is a very user-friendly company. Here is why: "Your first order's on us with our 30-day money back guarantee. And you can cancel or change up your subscription any time."?

Which shows how much the company is confident in its product quality.

Noom

Company’s website: https://www.noom.com/

Co-Founder & President: Artem Petakov??

CEO & Co-Founder: Saeju Jeong ???

Lead Investors: Silver Lake, Sequoia Capital, Sompo Holdings, Samsung Ventures, Samsung Venture Investment, InterVest Co., RRE Ventures, National Institutes of Health, Qualcomm Ventures, Kleiner Perkins.

Total funding amount: $658.9M

Founded in 2008, Noom is a digital health platform based on psychology that smartly guides you with nutrition and workout advice.

Noom united human coaches, technology, and data to help people improve their health, from keeping their weight under control, and stopping diabetes before it starts, to lessening stress.

Noom's app motto is 'Lose weight with psychology.'?

You're asked to take the quiz within the app to create your demographic profile and build a personalized plan. Besides some general demographic questions, it will ask about the risk of diseases, such as diabetes or high blood pressure.?

Noom has received numerous recognitions. For example, it was named one of Inc's Best Places to Work and Fortune's Best Workplaces in Technology. Also, the Centers for Disease Control claimed Noom as the first app with a certified diabetes prevention program.

What we like the most about it:

Noom cares not only about your weight but also your stress level. We tried to take the app quiz, but it did not let us go beyond the question about the current weight. Here is why:

Noom warns you that the Body Mass Index (BMI) below 18.5 means you have a high-stress level. That means, firstly, you have to manage your mental wellness. And Noom can help with it as well.

Virta

Company’s website: https://www.virtahealth.com/

CEO & Founder: Sami Inkinen

Lead Investors: Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital Global Equities, Caffeinated Capital, Venrock.

Total funding amount: $373M

Founded in 2014, Virta gives a treatment tested and proven clinically to counteract T2D (Type 2 Diabetes) without medications or surgery. The company also has solutions for prediabetes and weight gain.?

Virta's users receive a customized nutrition plan and a mentor, and they utilize tracking tools and a mobile app to observe parameters such as blood sugar concentrations and blood pressure.

Here are just a few results of Virta's approach:

• 97% diabetes prevention: across two years, 97% of users in their study did not get to the stage of having T2D. A lot of them got a lot better or even fully recovered.
• 31 lbs weight loss: Virta's nutritional therapy and physician-led support help people lose weight — on average, 12% (just over 30 pounds) in one year.

Scott Shleifer of Tiger Global, one of the lead investors: "Virta is redefining how diabetes and other chronic diseases should be cared for, delivering significantly better health outcomes and impressive cost savings."

What we like the most about it:

The participants of the clinical trial got rid of almost two-thirds of their diabetes medications. After a year, 60% of the participants stopped all their diabetes drugs except metformin.

Foodsmart

Company’s website: https://www.foodsmart.com/

Founder & CEO: Jason Langheier

Lead Investors: Advocate Aurora Health, Espresso Capital, Zaffre Investments, Seventure Partners, Mayfield Fund.

Total funding amount: $104.8M

Founded in 2010, Foodsmart claims to be ‘your personal nutrition expert.’ It’s a nutritional platform with personalized dietary recommendations to improve health overall. You might have heard about it with its former name Zipongo.?

Foodsmart offers various 12-week personalized nutrition programs based on your health goals: gut health, weight management, general wellness, heart health program, and others.

Here’s how it works:

• Firstly, you schedule a consultation with a dietitian to discuss your expectations and aims to develop a specific nutrition plan.
• Once you’ve set up your food preferences, you can create your nutrition plan with thousands of chef-crafted recipes in-app.
• You can do grocery shopping and order food within the Foodsmart app. It’s possible to order not only from supermarkets but also from local cafes.
• You can track all your results in the app. Your dietitian will help you stay focused and make the necessary changes by keeping in touch regularly.

What we like the most about it:

Most of all, we like the reviews about Foodsmart that prove its mission and effectiveness.?

Here are some of them:

“I’ve seen significant improvements in my health since I’ve started using the Foodsmart app. I lost about 30 pounds in a year.”??

“I am already down 30 lbs using the recipes on Foodsmart. Even my 2 year old who is super picky loves the recipes.”

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