Israeli personalized nutrition company DayTwo has raised $31 million in a financing round led by aMoon and the Ofek fund and with the participation of previous investors Johnson & Johnson, Seventure Partners, Israeli NBA basketball star Omri Casspi, and other private investors. The company has raised $48 million to date. DayTwo has developed a microbiome human discovery platform that offers a glycemic control solution for people with type II diabetes.
DayTwo provides its customers with personalized nutritional recommendations through a smartphone, based on mapping and analyzing a person's intestinal microbiome, for the purpose of maintaining balanced blood sugar levels and leading a healthier life.
DayTwo's technology is based on groundbreaking research at the Weizmann Institute. The study discovered the same types of food can cause different sugar responses in the blood of different people, and that the composition of intestinal bacteria, which is unique to each person, contributes to the differing response. Among other things, the study revealed that food that causes a balanced blood sugar response in one person is liable to cause a rise in the blood sugar levels of another person. In certain cases, foods that we regard as healthy are not recommended, and vice versa.
DayTwo cofounder and CEO Lihi Segal said that the money will be used to expand marketing to the US. DayTwo's product is currently mainly marketed in Israel where it is subsidized by leading organizations such as the health funds and insurance companies.
Segal said, "Before strengthening marketing in the US, it was important to validate the effectiveness of the product for the US public. Research was recently completed with a clinic that validated the effectiveness of the algorithm for forecasting the level of sugar in the blood as well as the results from the Weizmann Institute that were originally achieved with an Israeli population."
She added, "Our strategy in entering the US market is based on cooperation with insurance companies, employers and health organizations and less through B2C as in Israel. With such a strategy, the time to sales is naturally longer. We are launching during the next quarter a number of pilots with employers and with insurers, and building the commercial infrastructure and workforce in our US office to create the required growth in the US market. The capital raised will serve us, among other things, for this purpose."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 26, 2019
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