RiverPark Ventures-backed personalized nutrition company Remedy Health that offers a line of vitamin gummy products Nourished made with its patented 3D printing technology has raised an $11 million series A fund led by ADM Ventures and Cibus Fund, after seeing its revenue grow by more than 600% over the past year.
The round of financing, which also includes follow on investments from Apater Capital and Henkel X, brings the UK-based company’s total value to more than $71.6 million, and is expected to help the company make its foray into kids nutrition and protein bars, as well as expand its production to the U.S. later this year.
Ian Pinner, ADM’s SVP and chief strategy and innovation officer said how the company is uniquely positioned to help Remedy Health scale as a global leader in nutrition.
“ADM has been developing innovative precision nutrition solutions for years,” Pinner wrote me via email. “As technology develops, and the ability to personalize nutrition evolves, we anticipate long- term consumer demand will continue to intensify.
“Research we conducted late last year shows 31% of consumers are already purchasing more products tailored to their personal health. And, close to half of consumers report that every individual requires a custom nutrition and exercise plan, regardless of their own unique circumstances.”
Made Fresh To Order
Remedy Health’s founder Melissa Snover launched her business in 2019 after realizing a significant increase in the number of personalized nutrition products in recent years, and notes how the industry is projected to grow from $3.7 billion in value to over $16 billion by 2027.
“Whilst running my previous business Magic Candy Factory, I recognized the potential for the 3D printing technology I’d developed,” Snover recently told me. “I wanted it to make a real difference in people’s lives, but in order to do that, we had to go further than confectionery.”
Through Nourished’s website, consumers are offered a recommendation of the best seven active ingredients to optimize their lifestyle goals after completing a questionnaire, and their selection is then 3D printed on demand into a vegan hydrocolloid gel, and is made fresh to order.
The ultimate goal for Remedy Health, according to Snover, is “to offer authentically personalized nutrition in a single daily format”. However, she recognizes certain nutrients can interfere with each other’s efficacy when they are combined.
“We remove this issue completely with our method,” she explained. “In the case of superfoods and active ingredients where this is not applicable, we use the minimal efficient dosage recommendation from the largest and most peer reviewed clinical trials.
“We don’t include any ingredients in our options list which don’t have at least one human trial that has been published in a medical journal and peer reviewed. This has less to do with the technology and more to do with my belief that you should treat your customers with respect as how you would want to be treated.”
Melissa Snover founded Remedy Health after realizing a rising consumer interest in personalized … [+]
John Cleary Photography
D2C And Experience-Based Activations
Snover stresses how Nourished’s freshly made vitamin gummy is “naturally best suited to a direct-to-consumer model,” and their products can usually be delivered within three days.
“We also recognize the power of retail, especially experience-based activations,” she added. “As such, we have recently partnered with Selfridges in the UK as part of their Project Earth initiative focused on bringing more sustainable products and brands to the market.
“We have also launched our first ever live printing demonstrations in store. Customers can engage with a consultation, much like on the website, and are then recommended one of our 13 pre-blended Nourished Life Stacks, blends which are made with individuals’ specific needs, goals and life events in mind.”
Protein Bars And Postbiotics Development With ADM
Remedy Health expects its newly raised capital to not only help build a third production facility in the UK, a U.S. factory where it will produce supplements for local consumers, but supports its future product development especially with ADM as well.
Snover said her team will be working closely with ADM to develop their personalized protein bar concept, which anticipates to enter the market in Q4 this year, and come up with gut health-focused supplements thanks to the latter’s unique strength in postbiotics, which are functional bioactive compounds generated during the fermentation process.
“Unlike probiotics or prebiotics, postbiotics can be heat-treated,” Pinner explained. “This allows us to combine the biotic with other ingredients, opening up an enormous opportunity to personalize a wide range of functional food and beverage products. Categories such as bars, snacks, sports drinks and other beverages, are the ones that we have solutions for already.”
The extensive product roadmap is expected to bring Remedy Health’s total customers to 30,000 monthly by the end of 2021, generating more than $10 million in sales, Snover predicts.
“Then in 2022, we will also be shifting our focus to innovating new customized solutions for pets,” she said.