DayTwo Raises $37M To Help Manage Metabolic Diseases Through Personalized Nutrition

Israeli startup DayTwo, a company that developed a personalized health platform based on the gut microbiome, raised $37 million this week to continue developing solutions that help people improve their health and manage diabetes and other metabolic diseases through nutrition, the company announced.

The funding round included DayTwo’s existing investors aMoon, founded by Checkpoint co-founder and serial entrepreneur Marius Nacht and Dr. Yair Schindel; 10D, a VC firm founded by Magma Venture Partners co-founder Yahal Zilka; and Cathay Innovation Ventures. They were joined by new investors Poalim Capital Markets, La’maison Fund, and Micron Ventures, among others.

DayTwo was founded in 2015 by Lihi Segal, who serves as CEO, Yuval Ofek, and Nacht, who serves as co-founder. The company’s platform provides microbiome-based, customized nutrition recommendations and diagnostic solutions backed by AI and machine learning. DayTwo’s initial product enables glycemic control and is targeted for people with type 2 diabetes, helping them balance blood sugar levels, lower HbA1C, and manage their weight using a food-as-medicine approach personalized to the subject’s clinical and personal traits.

The company’s database of the gut microbiome is also the foundation for the DayTwo Human Discovery Platform, which it claims is the world’s largest and highest resolution microbiome discovery platform. The tool helps identify precision medicine therapies, diagnostics, and care solutions and, according to DayTwo, offers a path to remission for metabolic diseases such as diabetes, pre-diabetes, clinical obesity, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. 

The company’s solutions are based on research conducted by Professors Eran Segal, Ph.D., and Eran Elinav, M.D., Ph.D. at The Weizmann Institute of Science, both of whom serve on the company’s scientific board.

To date, DayTwo has raised $85 million from investors and plans to expand in the US market through health and insurance plans offered by employers. In the Israeli market, DayTwo works with Clalit Health Services, which provides DayTwo’s solution to its members, and expects to launch a similar collaboration with Maccabi Health Services.

Adi Lev, DayTwo’s Deputy CEO for Research and Development said in a statement that “in the coming decade, the digital health tech industry will be a global engine of growth at least as powerful as the cyber industry in the previous decade.”

Furthermore, the company has seen a direct link between its work and the impact on people’s health. “When a patient in Michigan reported this week that she had canceled complex bariatric surgery, or when another person with diabetes stops using medications to regulate his condition because he is better managing his blood sugar levels through better daily food choices, it gives a sense of meaning and real added value to what we do,” Lev added.

The new investment will fund more research “into the links between the bacteria in our bodies and other diseases, and the development of new algorithms, to provide new scientific discoveries,” Lev indicated.

Segal said in the statement that DayTwo has focused its efforts in the US marlet over the past two years.

“Our solution leads to a significant and rapid reduction in healthcare costs due to a reduction in prescription medication, fewer visits to the doctor, fewer complex surgical procedures with accompanying complications in the case of diabetes and metabolic diseases,” she explained. 

The company will continue to invest resources to intensify research on intestinal bacteria and develop additional solutions with real clinical impact,” she says.

According to Dr. Yair Schindel, founding partner and Director of the aMoon Foundation, “DayTwo’s ability to provide precision nutrition based on each person’s unique microbiome will continue to have a positive effect on the world of medicine in general, and diabetes and metabolic diseases in particular. I am happy that we are able to participate and help the company scale in global markets.”

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