London - October 11th, 2017
FoodMarble, makers of AIRE, the world's first personal digestive tracker, has today secured funding from a new investor, Breed Reply, a leading operational investor in early stage IoT businesses as well additional funding from SOSV, the venture capital fund, behind the HAX hardware accelerator, of which FoodMarble are a graduate. The funding will be used to build the management team and support product development to expand FoodMarble’s offering to customers.
FoodMarble was founded in Dublin, Ireland in early 2016, by CEO, Aonghus Shortt, PhD, and co-founders, Lisa Ruttledge, PhD, Peter Harte, PhD and James Brief, MD. The Company has developed AIRE, a pocket-size digestive tracker, to help people who struggle with digestive problems such as bloating, abdominal pain, constipation and diarrhoea. These symptoms can be triggered by the body's response to particular foods. AIRE helps figure out which foods are the problem by analysing the users’ breath to identify how well they digest different foods. When food isn’t digested fully, it ferments in the gut, releasing bio-markers that become available on the breath.
AIRE uses an array of sensors to measure the levels of these biomarkers to indicate how well the food has been absorbed. The accompanying app gives users a searchable list of foods, showing whether they are likely to be digested successfully, based on the breath readings provided. Currently, similar tests are conducted in hospitals on large, bulky machines. AIRE is the first time the technology has been placed in the hands of the consumer in an easy to use and cost-effective way without the need for a hospital appointment.
Since its launch, FoodMarble has already received more than 5,000 pre-orders for AIRE via foodmarble.com for a special-pre-order price of £115 or €129 (inc. VAT). These are expected to be delivered to customers by the end of 2017.
Aonghus Shortt, Founder and CEO, commented: “Almost a billion people globally are affected by persistent and highly disruptive digestive problems. This new funding enables us to build a really powerful platform around AIRE. We hope this will not only make a profoundly positive impact on those faced with these issues but could yield huge cost savings for over-burdened health systems worldwide. The support of Breed Reply and SOSV, with their experience and long-term commitment, will be instrumental to us in achieving this mission.”
Emanuele Angelidis, CEO of Breed Reply, said: “Health is one of the most exciting opportunities for IoT technology. FoodMarble has identified a real need as more and more people become aware of how specific foods cause digestive problems and AIRE is revolutionary because it puts control into the hands of the user. We are really excited about working with Aonghus, Lisa, Peter, James and the rest of the FoodMarble team.”
Bill Liao, Investment Partner, SOSV, said: “Real time, personal diagnostic tools and technology are a huge trend in empowering people around their own health. We are excited to see this difficult area being tackled in such an easy to use way.”