Foodsmart Files for IPO After Raising Over $76 Million Across 8 Funding Rounds, Pioneering Digital Nutrition and Food-as-Medicine Platform

January 11, 2023, Digital Nutrition PlatformFoodsmartAnnounced the completion of a round of financing invested by Memorial Hermann Health System. With this, Foodsmart, which has been established for 12 years, has successfully completed8 roundsFinancing, FinanceSuper$76 million。

Since its establishment in 2011, Foodsmart has partnered with more than150, Foodsmart ranks among the top players in the digital nutrition sector. A simple statistic vividly illustrates Foodsmart’s impact on cost control: “For every $1 invested in health products, companies can achieve $6 in cost savings.”

In the digital nutrition market, buoyed by favorable tailwinds, why has Foodsmart managed to stand out among various digital nutrition platforms? VCBeat’s Orange Bureau analyzes its distinctive features.

The founder of Foodsmart is a serial entrepreneur with years of industry experience. During their time in school,Jason LangheierWe frequently develop various apps to improve health behaviors.

During his studies at Duke University School of Medicine, Jason Langheier developed an application called Coach K Drive 2 Fitness to promote physical activity. Upon achieving specific goals, users could earn health-related rewards from local vendors. The system was subsequently adopted by Fitness Forward, a non-profit organization dedicated to engaging volunteers in mentoring school-aged children toward healthy lifestyles.

During his studies at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where he earned a Master’s degree in Biostatistics and Decision Science, Dr. Jason Langheier also served as a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. During this period, Dr. Langheier founded a“Children's Play Handbook”, to collaborate on comprehensive health in the community.

Meanwhile, Jason Langheier is also the co-founder and CTO of Proventys, a medical information company. As the Principal Investigator of an NCI SBIR grant, he led the initial development of a personalized treatment decision support system based on NCCN guidelines, as well as predictive models for adverse outcomes of chemotherapy.

2011, he founded Foodsmart (formerly known as Zipongo),Providing food benefit management and nutrition counseling to large insurance employers and health plans, the company was inspired by his experience in establishing a pediatric weight management clinic at Boston Medical Center.

After discussing the role of Foodsmart’s nutrition adherence tools in health, students of leading nutrition experts at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health stated: “The second pillar of FBM is enabling the oldest of new generic drugs. More than two centuries ago, Hippocrates posited that ‘Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food,’ yet today it is easier to fill a prescription than to obtain clear guidance and support for eating better.”

Starting with “what to eat,” Foodsmart’s development can be divided into two phases: the first phase involves integrating the largest network of registered dietitians in the United States to build a comprehensive nutrition platform; the second phase focuses on the prevention of chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes, aiming to address major disease prevention challenges, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and cancer, through what is termed “food as medicine.”

In the first phase, Foodsmart primarilyProvide personalized dietary guidance and O2O purchasing channels. Upon accessing the Foodsmart platform, consumers are first required to answer a series of questions related to their diet and lifestyle, enabling registered dietitians to gain an initial understanding of the consumers’ habits, preferences, and health status.

Subsequently, the platform's registered dietitians will engage with consumersOne-on-one matching,The two parties regularly communicate via platform-based video conferences and other means, and leverage the MealRx platform to collect consumer health data, thereby integrating consumers’ personal electronic medical records with their health data to deliver personalized nutrition plans tailored to individual preferences.

After consumers receive their specific nutrition plans, the Foodsmart platform also creates aAd-Free Online Food E-Commerce Platform, offering services such as analyzing the nutritional content of dishes and designing recipes based on different ingredients. When consumers are attracted to a specific ingredient or cooking method and add their preferred items to their shopping list, Foodsmart leverages its integrations with platforms like Instacart, Amazon Fresh, and Walmart to inform them which nearby supermarket offers the ingredients on their list at the most competitive prices.

Thus, leveraging the company’s customized nutrition consulting services, Foodsmart’s e-commerce platform continues to emphasize personalization, enabling adjustments based on users’ meal plans and recommendations from registered dietitians, thereby achieving“Consultation-Formulation-Purchase”One-stop service.

Figure: Foodsmart Service Process

At the same time, this has attracted diverse user groups to converge on the Foodsmart platform. For instance, some users prefer cooking at home, others dine out, and some seek to purchase discounted ingredients. According to data from the company’s official website, Foodsmart has already attracted more than1.25 millionRegistered members can save $350 annually on healthcare expenses per member.

After attracting sufficient traffic, Foodsmart began its transformation, aiming to leverage clinically validated dietary plans to help consumers overcome chronic conditions such as obesity, hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, and increased risk of death from COVID-19.

In 2018, Foodsmart began expanding its technology platform and officially launched it.FoodscriptsTool: A nutrition plan clinically designed and proven to treat chronic diseases.

“We are trying to take it to a new level, because the most powerful generic drug is personalized food. It is more cost-effective, has fewer side effects, and multiple RCTs (randomized controlled trials) have shown that it is more effective for various chronic diseases,” Jason Langheier said in an interview.

It is understood that Foodscripts adds specific modules to its platform to address conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and obesity through standardized, personalized, evidence-based nutrition plans. To this end, FoodsmartWith 23andMecollaborate with third-party providers offering biometric identification,Based on Genomics, Microbiomics, and Other “Omics”, thereby integrating consumers' electronic medical records and health data to assess physiological indicators such as blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and body composition.

Upon obtaining consumers' personal health records, Foodscripts will leverage their valid data, creating targeted and clinically proven dietary plans for them, thereby replicating the previous business model, to achieve the goal of adjuvant therapy for chronic diseases.

In the spring of 2023, Foodsmart kicked off the year with a strong start, not only announcing an investment from Memorial Hermann Health System but alsoMemorial HermannHealth SystemAdmitted as a founding member to join the Foodscript Network.

It is understood that Memorial Hermann Health System is the largest non-profit healthcare system in southeastern Texas, managing 12 hospitals and more than 100 outpatient clinics, and providing network support for 5,000 affiliated physicians. The partnership with Memorial Hermann Health System is expected to provide Foodsmart with three major technical safeguards:

First isMore Efficient and High-Quality Services. Leveraging IBM technology at Memorial Hermann, Foodsmart stands at the forefront of medical research. “The deployment of high-performance flash storage systems has elevated our analytical capabilities to a new level, enabling us to detect signs of certain diseases before their onset,” said Dr. Robert Murphy, Chief Medical Information Officer at Memorial Hermann, in an interview.

Leveraging IBM technology, Foodscript Network shifts the focus from treatment to prevention. By utilizing consumers’ physiological data, it prescribes more targeted dietary plans in advance to replenish nutritional needs and effectively prevent the onset of chronic diseases.

Secondly,Ultra-Fast Storage CapabilityMemorial Hermann has deployed two high-performance IBM FlashSystem arrays to deliver the high throughput required for mission-critical applications, including Oracle databases that store patients' electronic medical records.

Therefore, during the operation of Foodscript Network, migrating data to IBM FlashSystem can enable the Oracle electronic medical records database toAverage response time reduced by over 99%, enabling registered dietitians to access consumer data around the clock and develop corresponding nutrition plans.

Finally, it isEffectively Ensure Data SecurityIn 2006, Memorial Hermann partnered with McAfee Endpoint Encryption and McAfee Device Control to encrypt laptops, workstations, and other removable media devices, effectively preventing data loss.

As a data-driven personalized platform, Foodscript Network not only simplifies the deployment of terminal encryption and device control solutions and automates real-time, detailed device and data policies, but also effectively safeguards the platform’s image, reputation, and brand.

From dietary management to chronic disease prevention, Foodsmart’s core lies in its network of professional registered dietitians and a powerful database. By integrating the largest network of registered dietitians in the United States, Foodsmart has built a strong reputation and demonstrated professional expertise. Its health consultation team, composed of professional registered dietitians, provides specialized services to consumers in areas such as service delivery and meeting individual needs.

Furthermore, the Foodsmart platform’s mobile app, PC interface, and nutrition database are synchronized with thousands of recipes and intelligent recommendation algorithms, enabling highly personalized dietary plans for each participant. The partnership with Memorial Hermann further elevates the platform’s capabilities.

Quantify the nutritional content of food and provide personalized, cost-effective recommendations, enabling users to form a natural closed loop around “what to eat, how to eat, and how to buy.”, which is a competitive advantage that Foodsmart finds difficult to replicate. And in the course of its continuous development,Post-transformation, Foodsmart requires more precise and secure monitoring technologies to re-establish a natural closed loop for chronic disease prevention, building on its existing business foundation.