gut-health
(27)
Helaina
Helaina is a New York-based biotechnology company using precision fermentation to produce human-equivalent bioactive proteins. Its first commercial product, effera, is a human-identical lactoferrin made in yeast that matches the amino acid sequence of the protein found in mother's milk. Founded in 2019 by food scientist Laura Katz, Helaina sells effera as a B2B ingredient to consumer wellness and supplement brands, targeting women's health, gut health, active nutrition and healthy aging. The company has raised roughly $84 million in equity funding, including a $45 million Series B in 2024.
Floré
Floré, built by San Diego biotech Sun Genomics, makes probiotics the slow way: you mail in a stool sample, an accredited lab reads the whole genome of your gut microbiome, and an algorithm trained on tens of thousands of prior formulations builds a supplement matched to the bacteria you actually carry. Founded in 2016 by former Illumina and LabCorp genomicist Sunny Jain, the company sells a subscription that re-tests and re-formulates over time, and has published peer-reviewed research pairing its precision synbiotics with gut and autism-spectrum outcomes.
BodyBio
BodyBio is a family-owned, third-generation supplement company based in Millville, New Jersey that builds health at the cellular level. Founded in 1998 by biochemist Ed Kane, it grew out of a blood-chemistry diagnostics practice into a maker of phospholipid, electrolyte and short-chain fatty acid products - most notably BodyBio PC (phosphatidylcholine) and e-lyte electrolyte concentrate - manufactured in-house and sold to consumers and to a network of more than 35,000 healthcare practitioners.
GEM
GEM is a Los Angeles-based wellness company that reimagines the daily multivitamin as a whole-food bite rather than a pill or gummy. Founded in 2018 by Sara Cullen, GEM packs 20+ vitamins, minerals, superfoods, prebiotics, probiotics and microalgae into a single real-food chew, sold mainly through a subscription model plus retail and Amazon. Its pitch is 'food is medicine' - transparent, plant-based, and traceable nutrition for people who distrust synthetic supplements.
Methodology
Methodology is a premium, San Francisco-founded meal delivery service that ships chef-prepared, nutritionist-designed meals nationwide. Positioned around the idea of 'food as medicine,' its rotating weekly menus are free of gluten, dairy, refined sugar, canola oil and preservatives, cooked in avocado oil with sustainable proteins and 200+ plant varieties a week. Meals arrive ready to reheat in reusable glass jars and bentos that the company collects and sanitizes - a closed-loop packaging system aimed at zero food waste. Founded by former J.P. Morgan and Lumosity operator Julie Nguyen in 2015, the brand also runs a postpartum nourishment program for new mothers.
Ora Organic
Ora Organic is an Austin-based direct-to-consumer wellness brand making plant-based, USDA Organic supplements - vegan protein powders, greens, probiotics, and vitamins - built around clean, third-party-tested ingredients with no synthetic additives. Founded in 2014 and later featured on Shark Tank, it grew from a founder's kitchen-table idea into a multi-product catalog spanning gut health, hormones, recovery, brain health, and skin.
OXOMIO
OXOMIO is a luxury wellness company that makes fermented supplements and nutricosmetics for gut, skin, hair and general health. Founded in 2017 by David Friedeberg, it uses a proprietary bio-fermentation process (GPM - Glycoprotein Matrix) to produce highly bioavailable organic vitamins and minerals, and combines them with branded ingredients such as Peptan marine collagen, LactoSpore probiotics and Superba Boost krill oil. It sells direct-to-consumer online under the tagline 'The Luxury of Wellness.'
Pique
Pique (piquelife.com) is a Los Angeles-based direct-to-consumer wellness brand best known for pioneering crystallized whole-leaf tea. Founded by Simon Cheng, the company turns organic teas and plant compounds into single-serve crystals that dissolve in cold or hot water, and it has expanded into skin, gut, hydration and energy supplements built around its Cold Extraction Technology and Triple Toxin Screening standards.
Toi Labs
Toi Labs makes TrueLoo, an AI-powered smart toilet seat that turns every flush into passive health data. It fits on an existing toilet, optically scans stool and urine (never body parts), and flags concerning changes - blood, cloudy urine, loose stool, or 72 hours without a bowel movement - so care staff at senior living communities can follow up faster. Founded in San Francisco by serial healthcare entrepreneur Vik Kashyap, the company was named a TIME Best Invention of 2024 and is deployed across more than 300 senior care communities in North America.
wildwonder
wildwonder is a San Francisco-based functional beverage company making sparkling prebiotic and probiotic drinks inspired by the Chinese herbal healing tonics founder Rosa Li grew up drinking. Each organic, vegan, low-sugar can pairs 5g of prebiotic plant fiber and live probiotics with herbs, botanicals, and fruit flavors like Guava Rose and Mango Gold. Positioned as a better-for-you soda alternative, the brand has sold millions of cans across thousands of retailers, landed a Shark Tank deal with DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, and directs 5% of profits toward empowering women and marginalized communities.
Matt Barnard
Matt Barnard is the cofounder and CEO of one.bio, a Sacramento biotechnology company turning plant fiber into odorless, tasteless nutrients that can be dosed into everyday food to reshape the gut microbiome. A seventh-generation Wisconsin farmer turned technology operator, he first became known as the cofounder and CEO of Plenty, the SoftBank-backed indoor vertical farming unicorn. He now applies the same obsession - control what people eat, control their health - to fiber science spun out of UC Davis.
Brad Berman
Brad Berman is the co-owner and CEO of BodyBio, a family-owned cellular-health and nutritional-supplement company in Millville, New Jersey. He arrived not from a lab but from the beverage aisle, with stops at PepsiCo and FIJI Water, and married into the founding Kane family. Since taking the top job in 2019 he has rebranded the 25-plus-year-old practitioner brand, pushed it into direct-to-consumer and mainstream retail, and steered roughly 41% revenue growth that landed BodyBio on the Inc. 5000.
David Friedeberg
David Friedeberg is the founder and CEO of OXOMIO, a wellness and supplements company that pairs Earth's purest natural ingredients with biotechnology under the banner 'The Luxury of Wellness.' Son of Mexican surrealist Pedro Friedeberg, David grew up in an artist's household where making something from nothing was a daily ritual, then carried that mindset through a career that spanned fine-art dealing, hospitality operations, and a Harvard MBA before launching OXOMIO in 2017. He splits his life between San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and Austin, Texas, and runs his days by the Japanese principle of kenkou dai-ichi - health above everything else.
WellTheory
WellTheory is a virtual autoimmune care platform founded in 2020 by Ellen Rudolph, Claire Rudolph, and Wallace Torres — all personally affected by autoimmune disease. The company pairs licensed registered dietitians and board-certified health coaches with advanced diagnostic testing to help the 50+ million Americans living with autoimmune conditions reduce symptoms and reclaim their lives. Members follow a 12-month personalized program covering nutrition, sleep, stress, and movement. Clinical outcomes show 92% of members reduce symptoms within four weeks, 85% cut ER visits within 16 months, and average annual healthcare savings of $5,181 per patient. Backed by $33.4M in total funding led by General Catalyst, WellTheory serves both individual members ($175/month) and self-insured employers and health plans like Sentara Health Plans.
Simon Cheng
Simon Cheng is the founder and CEO of Pique, a Los Angeles-based wellness company that turned whole-leaf tea into dissolvable crystals using a patented cold extraction process. A Hong Kong native who grew up drinking tea with his grandparents, Cheng abandoned those rituals in his teens, then spent his 20s cycling through surgeries and a decade of health crises. He rebuilt his health on a multi-year study trip across Asia learning from medicinal-plant and breathwork masters, and channeled that obsession into Pique, which launched in Whole Foods in 2016 and scaled to thousands of stores. Harvard and Stanford educated, and the youngest member of Harvard School of Public Health's Nutrition Roundtable, Cheng built Pique on three promises: efficacy, purity, and zero prep.
Bonafide Provisions
Bonafide Provisions is a Carlsbad, California maker of organic, traditionally-prepared bone broth founded in 2011 by clinical nutritionist Sharon Brown and her chef husband Reb. Born after bone broth helped heal their young son's chronic infections, the company became the first USDA Organic frozen broth on the market and has since expanded into shelf-stable cooking broths, paleo soups and heat-and-go keto broth cups. Its products are sold nationwide through Whole Foods, Sprouts, Kroger, Target, Publix and Walmart.
Amanda Luke
Amanda Luke is the CEO of Bonafide Provisions, the family-founded California maker of organic, traditionally-prepared bone broth. A UC Berkeley and Columbia-trained marketer, she spent years building health-and-wellness brands at Safeway and Luvo before joining the small Carlsbad broth company in 2018, rising from VP of Marketing to CEO within roughly a year. Under her leadership the women-led brand pushed beyond frozen broth into keto cups, cooking broths, and shelf-stable pantry products, positioning Bonafide as one of the most recognizable clean-label bone broth names in the United States.
Parsley Health
Parsley Health is a functional-medicine telehealth provider founded in 2016 by physician Dr. Robin Berzin. It pairs in-depth diagnostics and biomarker testing with longitudinal, team-based care - doctors plus health coaches - to find and treat the root causes of chronic conditions like gut, autoimmune, hormonal, metabolic and mental-health issues, rather than just managing symptoms. Originally a cash-pay membership model with clinics in New York and Los Angeles, Parsley has shifted to a virtual-first national service and in 2026 became the first functional-medicine provider to accept insurance in-network nationwide, putting its care within reach of roughly 150 million insured Americans.
RYZE Superfoods
RYZE Superfoods is a Boston-based direct-to-consumer wellness brand best known for its mushroom coffee - a blend of organic instant coffee, organic fiber, and a six-mushroom 'Super6' functional blend (cordyceps, lion's mane, reishi, turkey tail, shiitake, and king trumpet). Founded in 2020 by Harvard classmates Andrée Werner and Rashad Hossain, RYZE pitches a calmer, lower-caffeine ritual that delivers focus and immune support without the spike-and-crash of regular coffee. The company grew largely on early seed money plus aggressive social and influencer marketing, reaching reported revenue in the tens of millions while expanding into matcha, hot cocoa, creamers, and other functional blends.
Tiny Health
Tiny Health is an Austin-based health company that built the first at-home gut microbiome test designed for babies, then extended the same clinically-validated science to children, pregnant people, adults and longevity. It pairs DNA sequencing of stool and vaginal samples with age-specific reference ranges and personalized, research-backed recommendations, aiming to catch early microbiome imbalances linked to eczema, allergies, digestive issues and chronic conditions before they take hold.
one.bio
one.bio is a Sacramento biotechnology company that releases short-chain plant fibers and makes them flavorless, odorless, colorless and water-soluble so they can be added to food and drinks at high doses without changing taste or texture. Spun out of UC Davis, it pairs a fiber-mapping knowledgebase called the Glycopedia with a proprietary depolymerization process to turn long-chain plant carbohydrates - including agricultural byproducts - into bioactive fibers that feed the microbiome and support metabolic and immune health. The company raised a $27M Series A in December 2024 and in early 2026 launched its discovery platform, its first clinically validated ingredient (one.bio 01) and a consumer brand, GoodVice.
resbiotic
resbiotic is a physician-founded microbiome health company building clinically tested probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics, and bioactive botanicals around its Gut-X Axis platform - the idea that the gut talks to the rest of the body. Its flagship resB Lung Support is positioned as the first clinically tested probiotic targeting the gut-lung axis for respiratory health. Founded in 2020 by physician-scientist Dr. C. Vivek Lal out of microbiome research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the company sells direct-to-consumer and through retail including Walmart and GNC, and has raised roughly $20.6M to date.
TurtleTree
TurtleTree is a biotech and food-tech company that makes lactoferrin - one of the rarest and most valuable proteins in cow's milk - without the cow. Using precision fermentation, its flagship ingredient LF+ recreates the bioactive milk protein at scale for use in immunity, gut health, sports nutrition and infant nutrition products. In 2025 TurtleTree became the first company in the world to win an FDA 'No Questions' GRAS letter for precision-fermented lactoferrin, clearing it to commercialize in the U.S.
Biohm Technologies
Biohm Technologies is a Cleveland-based microbiome innovation company that studies the gut as a whole - bacteria and fungi together - rather than bacteria alone. Built on 40+ years of fungal research by Dr. Mahmoud Ghannoum, the scientist who named the mycobiome, Biohm develops data-driven biotic ingredients and gut-health testing solutions. Its flagship ingredient Mycohsa is the first probiotic blend clinically shown to break down digestive biofilms, and its Symbiont discovery platform mines a large bacterial-fungal dataset to design targeted microbiome products. After a B2B pivot in 2024, the company now sells ingredients and microbiome science to nutraceutical and food brands.
Sam Schatz
Sam Schatz is the CEO and co-founder of Biohm Technologies, a Cleveland-based microbiome company betting that the future of gut health lives in fungi, not just bacteria. After spending a decade as AeroFarms' first employee scaling vertical farming from a startup into a global leader, he pivoted to the gut, turning a direct-to-consumer wellness brand into a B2B ingredients and data company built on a proprietary dataset of bacterial and fungal gut populations. He pairs data science with biology, raised a $4.52M Series B in 2025, and shipped Mycohsa, a probiotic blend clinically shown to break down digestive biofilms. Off the clock he is an Adirondack 46er and open-water swimmer.
OLIPOP
OLIPOP is a prebiotic soda company that turned the soft drink industry on its head by proving that soda can be both delicious and good for your gut. Founded in 2018 by Ben Goodwin and David Lester, the Oakland-based company combines nostalgic flavors with functional ingredients - each can delivers 6-9 grams of prebiotic fiber from plant-based sources like cassava root, chicory root, and nopal cactus. After reaching $400 million in revenue and profitability in 2024, OLIPOP closed a $50 million Series C at a $1.85 billion valuation in 2025, making it the fastest-growing non-alcoholic beverage brand in the United States.
David Lester
David Lester is the co-founder and former President of OLIPOP PBC, the prebiotic soda brand that grew from a $100,000 bet into a $1.85 billion company in under seven years. A former Diageo brand marketer who worked with Smirnoff, Gordon's Gin, and Johnnie Walker across three continents, Lester paired his CPG expertise with co-founder Ben Goodwin's scientific formulation genius to create a soda that supports gut health without sacrificing the nostalgia of a cold fizzy drink. OLIPOP now generates over $425 million in annual revenue, holds 65,000+ retail doors, and controls 87% of the functional soda category - a category it essentially invented.