Zoe sends at‑home kits for blood and fecal samples to measure blood fat, blood sugar, and gut microbiome health, then scores every food on a 0–100 scale to provide personalized recommendations. The service teaches users food swaps and combinations and tracks progress with continued microbiome testing. The company has published about 60 peer‑reviewed papers and completed a randomized controlled trial published in Nature Medicine in May 2024 that showed improvements in biological markers and user-reported outcomes after three to four months. Products are available across the U.S. except New York due to regulatory challenges, and Zoe plans to use new funding to expand its U.S. presence and invest in marketing. Financially, Zoe reported a paid customer base of more than 100,000, with most customers on a 12‑month subscription priced at $29 per month ($348 per year), and the company said it had virtually no revenue two years ago. The company is leveraging scientific validation and new capital to scale its product in the U.S. market. Zoe offers a personalised nutrition program that begins with comprehensive at-home tests analyzing blood sugar, blood fat responses, and the gut microbiome. It combines those results with artificial intelligence and data from thousands of participants in its proprietary ZOE PREDICT studies to generate personalised scores for any food an individual eats. Members use in-app tools, lessons, and expert nutrition support to build sustainable daily habits tailored to their bodies and health goals. The company was founded by Professor Tim Spector, data science leader Jonathan Wolf, and entrepreneur George Hadjigeorgiou, and is based in Boston and London. Zoe plans to use the new funding to scale its operations and science to reach millions of people globally. The recent $2.5M round brings total invested to over $92M. Zoe began with a viral COVID-19 self-reporting app and has refocused on its original mission of building a nutrition study of the gut microbiome and delivering personalized dietary insights via its app. Its core product combines user-reported diet and lifestyle data with gut microbiome tests, blood-fat tests and optional continuous glucose monitors to generate individualized reports. The company charges an initial assessment fee (around £299.99) that includes testing and a personalized report, and offers memberships ranging from £59.99/month down to £24.99/month with an annual plan. Zoe reports roughly 50,000 active paying users and nearly 5 million people who have submitted free self-reported nutritional data; it also has a community of about 2 million and a waiting list it plans to scale to 250,000 people. Future plans include expanding research into sleep, mood, activity, menopause and other health areas, deeper integrations with third-party hardware (e.g., Apple Watch) and running larger randomized studies to validate results. The company is positioning itself to scale operations and onboarding to meet accelerating customer demand. Zoe builds a consumer program centered on a home testing kit and app that analyzes microbiome data, blood lipids and blood sugar to generate personalized food scores and meal advice. Its first product, launched in the U.S. in September, requires participants to provide stool samples, perform finger-prick blood tests and wear a continuous glucose monitor; the program costs around $360 (collected in six instalments). Zoe uses big data and machine learning trained on large-scale microbiome studies and collaborations with researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Stanford Medicine, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and King’s College London to predict individual responses to food. The company positions the product as a general-wellness tool rather than a regulated medical device and does not offer medical diagnosis or treatment. Zoe cites promising interim trial outcomes (90% of participants reported more energy, 80% felt less hunger, and an average 11-pound weight loss) but has not disclosed participant counts for those metrics. The business says demand is high and is operating a waitlist, and it points to its prior COVID-19 symptom app (about 5M users) as an example of large-scale data-driven research. New funding will be used to accelerate rollout, with a U.K. launch planned this year and other geographies targeted for 2022, plus continued hiring in engineering and science.

Total raised

$68M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Jul 2024