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Saturday, May 10, 2025

New startup Superpower scores $30M to offer personalized health testing

 New startup Superpower is jumping into the preventive health and longevity market offering personalized lab testing to give consumers more insights into their health.

For $499 per year, Superpower offers biannual lab testing that analyzes over 100 blood biomarkers across 21 categories, including hormone health, longevity, immune regulation, inflammation and nutrients and toxins. The company then centralizes any past medical records, fitness trackers and genetics, connecting this data with medical information to create personalized protocols based on a consumer's unique biology, according to Superpower.

 Members also get text access to a real concierge physician team, and 24/7 AI-enhanced guidance.

The company's medical team includes experts in integrative medicine, cardiology, oncology and longevity research. The platform's AI, currently in beta, is “trained on medical literature with proprietary biomarker data, enabling real-time personalization previously impossible at scale,” according to co-founder and chief technology officer Kevin Unkrich.

Superpower pocketed $30 million in series A funding to grow its product and engineering teams and expand the availability of the product, Jacob Peters, Superpower's co-founder and CEO, told Fierce Healthcare in an interview.

Forerunner led the series A round, with participation from Day One Ventures, Susa Ventures, Long Journey Ventures, Family Fund, Opal Ventures, Valia Ventures, Visible Ventures and Winklevoss Capital. A number of celebrity investors also backed the round, including Vanessa Hudgens, Steve Aoki, Logan Paul and NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Peters said he and his co-founders wanted to build an app and a service that enables consumers to "superpower" their health.

"Our platform puts comprehensive blood testing and easy-to-understand health insights directly into people's hands–where this information belongs. The days of being in the dark about your health and dealing with confusing lab result printouts are over," he said.

"We believe that five years from now every person will have a health super app on their phone to help give them more control over their health and feel empowered to learn about their body and take action," said co-founder Max Marchione.

Peters and Marchione were inspired by their own personal health challenges and frustrations with the health system. Peters faced serious conditions that went undiagnosed for years and added up to $2 million in medical bills. Marchione said he also spent decades navigating misdiagnoses from 20 doctors. 

Peters said access to concierge medicine helped him to get the right diagnosis. "I discovered what health looks like on the frontier, the best of medicine, but it isn’t democratized" or accessible to everyone, he said.

"I was told to medicate for life. There is a big gap between the best of healthcare and what most people have access to," Marchione said. Superpower wants to close that gap and give individuals access to advanced testing.

The co-founders believe their experiences with the traditional healthcare system are not isolated cases as many chronic conditions are avoidable. Early detection and management of risk factors are critical to preventing disease from progressing. As one example, if population-wide cholesterol levels could be reduced by 10%, the incidence of coronary artery disease could drop by an estimated 30%, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The three co-founders spent two years building the Superpower app and have been in beta mode since last year. Superpower currently has 150,000 people on its waiting list, Marchione said.

Marchione and Peters say Superpower's biomarker lab testing is 10x more comprehensive than a standard physical. The healthcare system also is fragmented, and when individuals do get testing, those results and critical insights end up scattered across different patient portals, they noted.

Superpower gives its members the tools to take control of their health and identify potential concerns before they develop into serious conditions, they said.

“Our goal is to build the world’s most intelligent health optimization system–where your data isn’t just tracked, it’s understood and acted on instantly,” said Anant Vinjamoori, M.D., a longevity physician and chief longevity officer at Superpower in a statement. “We're building a future where healthcare transforms how people live, not just how long.”

The company says it combines extensive testing, clinical-grade diagnostics, functional medicine protocols and AI health guidance into a single app. Its platform automatically translates complex test results into clear, actionable steps based on the latest scientific findings, making it easy for members to understand what their results mean and what to do next. The app also offers benchmarks through a Superpower score and a biological age metric that tracks members' overall health progress and identify specific areas for improvement.

The platform also connects members directly to vetted solutions through its integrated marketplace of specialists, prescriptions, and targeted supplements.

Members also can order additional specialty tests including toxins screening, gut microbiome analysis, and Grail cancer screening that can detect over 50 types of cancer before symptoms appear. 

“In my time investing, one of the largest secular trends we’ve seen is consumer willingness to spend on their health and wellness. Today, health is no longer just clinical, it’s aspirational," said Kirsten Green, founding partner at Forerunner. “The delta between what people know about their bodies and what they could know is massive. Superpower’s opportunity is to close this gap, empowering people with true personal agency via proactive insights and action.”

Superpower joins a growing list of startups and companies focused on prevention and longevity by offering cash-pay services for lab tests or full-body scans. Function Health launched last year offering a membership-based platform that gives consumers access to more than 100 lab tests at a cost of $499 per year, or about $42 per month. Mark Hyman, M.D., the co-founder of Function Health, told Time that the company has 100,000 paying members.

Prenuvo, a trendy startup that offers radiation-free, full-body MRI scans for early detection of cancer and other diseases, raised $70 million in series A equity and debt funding back in 2022. The scans cost about $2,500. Another company that is trying to take whole-body scans mainstream, Ezra, has raised $41 million, Forbes reported. Other companies in the space include Neko Health and SimonMed.

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/new-startup-superpower-scores-30m-launch-personalized-health-testing

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