With a “food-first” approach to its personalized nutrition platform, Ahara Corp. is launching in beta from a $10.8 million seed-funding round. The round was led by downtown-based Greycroft Partners with participation from Headline, Shakti Capital, Dr. Samuel Jampolis, Julie Wainwright and entrepreneur Sandy Sholl.
The Century City-based company was founded by Wainwright, a tech entrepreneur, with board-ceritfied physician nutrition specialist Dr. Melina Jampolis. The co-founders now serve as Ahara’s chief executive and chief medical officer, respectively.
To receive a personalized nutrition plan, users complete a detailed questionnaire about their health goals, symptoms and current eating patterns. The platform also offers blood-testing as an optional service, which looks at nutrigenetics, epigenetics and select biomarkers, such as omega-3 fatty acids. The generated wellness plan includes diet recommendations and nutritional supplements, which are sold and developed by Ahara.
“Ahara is the first precision nutrition business that takes a multi-omics approach,” Jampolis said. “Meaning the algorithm considers multiple inputs from the individual … to understand what key nutrients an individual needs in their diet and then recommends meals and dining-out options that map to those nutrients. Further, this personalized, precision nutrition approach also recommends only the supplements an individual needs for optimal health.”
Jampolis said the company believes it has created the world’s first “food-first” multivitamin, which is intended to force the user to focus first about eating their nutrients rather than relying solely on supplements and pills.
“Since nutrition supports healthy heart, immune, gut and brain health, and affects energy levels, mood and optimal athletic performance, everyone can and should address their overall health and nutrition,” Jampolis said.
User offerings include a basic program for $59.95 per quarter with nutritional recommendations based solely on questionnaire results, as well as a preferred option that includes blood testing for a $695 fee. The premium tier, which costs $2,500 annually, includes additional incremental testing and three consultations with Ahara nutritionists.
The company said that the questionnaire’s robust nature means that, even without testing, the user can receive comprehensive and actionable nutrition report.
Jampolis said one thing that sets Ahara apart is that the recommendations gleaned from test and questionnaire insights are based on a patent-pending algorithm she created, rather than on artificial intelligence-generated analysis.
“The more the program is implemented by users and the more data provided, the more personalized recommendations can be,” Jampolis said. “No other app does this. Recommendations are typically generated from machine learning. We are doing the opposite, using AI to refine and expand the implementation of those recommendations using our unique food-first approach.”
