Female-led 3D printed vitamin company closes $11 million in series A funding
New investors include ADM Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of ADM, and Cibus Enterprise Fund. The company also secured follow on investment from Apater Capital and Henkel X.
Remedy uses their patented 3D printing technologies to create personalized health and wellness solutions. It currently has 12 patents in total across hardware, software and material science.
Remedy is best known for its brand Nourished, the world’s first chewy 3D vitamins tailored to individuals via an online questionnaire, and most recently they introduced Nourished Kids.
How it works
Melissa Snover, founder and CEO of Remedy Health, explained that they developed proprietary heptacombo 3D printing technology and a vegan encapsulation formula that allows them to combine seven different high-impact active ingredients into daily customized gummy stacks.
“This gel formula allows us to have seven different active ingredients in a single gummy—the ingredients are encapsulated, so they don’t interfere with each other and we are able to acutely control dosing on the fly. Through our online consultation, our proprietary algorithm recommends which core nutrients and superfoods are best suited to support your unique lifestyle and health goals; the printers then combine this into a single, daily format which is delivered directly to your door each month in 100% plastic free, home compostable packing,” she explained.
When asked what the draw is for investors, the CEO said it’s all about the gummy.
“The gummy format of Nourished is a huge selling point—chewable formats are the fastest growing part of the VMC sector, with gummy vitamins now the number one way adults under the age of 35 want to consume their supplements. At Nourished, we tap into this market, while offering something no one else in the world does,” explained Snover.
“Personalization has been a huge trend in almost every industry for some time—from clothing, to haircare, to everything in between. Simultaneously, the market for health in both preventative and curative was, and still is, growing. A lot of people were selling gummy vitamins, and a lot of people were selling ‘personalized vitamins’—but we are the first in the world to be able to create an authentically personalized gummy vitamin. I believe investors could see huge potential in this concept,” she said.
Major money moves
Investors certainly see something, with this latest round of financing bringing the company’s total value to over $71 million—a hefty amount considering Remedy launched less than two years ago.
Snover formed Remedy in May 2019 and raised their seed round to $2.75 million by the end of the year—the largest seed round ever raised by a solo female founder in the United Kingdom.
“I knew that we had the potential to create something extremely valuable that had a real chance of making a meaningful difference in people’s lives. However, at that time I went to investors with simply an idea and my own personal track record, so that was probably the hardest money we raised. I was really lucky to be able to find great people who believed in my idea and my ability to make it happen. On the back of that we raised our seed round by the end of the year, at over £2 million pounds, which was the largest seed round ever raised by a solo female founder in the UK. This was an early indication to me of the incredible potential future that Remedy Health had to come, but there was still a lot of work to be done to make that a reality.”
With revenues growing by more than 600% in the past year, Snover has put in the work and continues to do so. The company has plans to expand their Nourished portfolio and tap into the US market.
“Nourished Kids launched in the UK and USA in April this year and has been a resounding success so far. The demand we’ve seen for the product has outstripped our predictions and our production team is working incredibly hard to keep up with demand. The Nourished Kids line is a key focus for the business now and moving forward,” explained Snover.
Behind the scenes, she added that her teams are working on their next product line—personalized protein bars. In order to do so, they are in the process of developing new 3D printing technology that will allow Remedy to create personalized protein bars with larger a format of nutrients and an unlimited number of potential flavor combinations.
3D vision
When it comes to explaining the concept of 3D printing of vitamins to consumers, Snover told NutraIngredients-USA that with tech playing a key role in so many areas of people’s everyday lives, it’s a natural progression for the vitamins they take to incorporate technological advances.
“But to be honest, I don’t think consumers care how we do it, just that we can and they get a great product at the end,” she added. “While the technology we’ve created may be complex, the concept and the benefits of this can be clearly explained to the average consumer and we can see that in the growth of the business thus far.”
More to come
Snover said the restrictions of the past year forced the company to optimize their existing production facilities in the UK in order to keep up with demand across markets.
“Next on the agenda is a US production facility where we will be able to produce in market, for market, with a local market supply chain, just as we do in the UK today.”
The Remedy Health team has outlined a roadmap for 2021, targeting 30,000 monthly customers and over $10 million in sales. While some may call it ambitious, Snover’s track record shows she has yet to print off more than she can chew.
