Microbiome-health management company raises $12 million

11 Jul 2017

Microbiome-health management company DayTwo has completed a $12.0 million Series A round of financing through Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Seventure Partners' Health for Life Capital fund, Mayo Clinic, and co-founder Marius Nacht.

Microbiome-health management company DayTwo has completed a $12.0 million Series A round of financing through Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Seventure Partners' Health for Life Capital fund, Mayo Clinic, co-founder Marius Nacht, and other private investors.

The investment brings DayTwo's total funding to $17.0 million, and the company says it will help to broaden and deepen its lead in evidence-based, clinically proven and actionable science of the gut microbiome. Proceeds from the financing will be used to expand the company's product, engineering, and data science teams in Tel Aviv, Israel and San Francisco, California. In addition, DayTwo says it will deepen its clinical research with the Mayo Clinic and other gut-microbiome clinical research partners.

The Series A financing builds on an exceptional year for DayTwo, according to the company, which saw a rapid growth in customers, key executive appointments, and market momentum in the areas of gut-microbiome-science, personalized nutrition, and diabetes and prediabetes management.

DayTwo says it is the first company to develop a method to accurately predict an individual's glycaemic response to specific foods and food combinations using an individual's microbiome and other clinical factors. This evidence-based approach to nutrition is, it says, what enables DayTwo to bring personalized nutrition to market, and make personalized nutrition a reality for millions of people today.

"This ability to go beyond the informational offerings in the market, which are neither evidence-based, clinically proven, or actionable, makes DayTwo different and special. DayTwo will help people act upon a healthier, personalized diet, based on accurately predicting postprandial glycemic response," said Nicholas Chia, professor of Biophysics & Microbiome at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

"We've just scratched the surface of how powerful the microbiome is to support personalized diet, nutrition, and chronic condition management, to enable our customers to have the ability to live a full, happy and healthy lifestyle," says DayTwo Chief Executive Officer Lihi Segal. "DayTwo has brought actionable, evidence-based science down to a mobile app, to make personalized nutrition easy and convenient for the first time. This enables DayTwo to impact the lives of hundreds of millions of people who struggle with diet and nutrition-related health risks every day," added Segal. "Having the financial support and domain expertise of JJDC, Seventure, co-founder Marius Nacht and our Israeli private equity investor group will enable us to execute our vision even more rapidly and broadly – with consumers, practitioners, health centers, and medical device partners."