Foodsmart wants to make diet the first line of defense.
The news: The food as medicine platform secured $200M from The Rise Fund, TPG’s impact investing arm.
Foodsmart combines 1:1 telenutrition with personalized meal planning and discounted grocery delivery via Instacart, Grubhub, and Walmart to reverse diet-related disease.
Already serving 2.2M members, the new funding will support expanded health plan partnerships, increasing access to insurance-backed meals.
Why it matters: Poor diet contributes to the death of 10K+ Americans every week, costing the country over $1T. As an alternative or complement to GLP-1s, food as medicine will be key to better outcomes.
Making nutrition coaching and healthy groceries accessible, Foodsmart and others aim to combat obesity, hypertension, complex illness, and food insecurity.
- Specializing in chronic disease, Season Health raised $7M in December.
- Expanding access to RDs, Nourish closed a $35M Series A round in March
- Also in March, Chiyo secured $3M for TCM-inspired maternal health meal delivery.
- Backed by General Catalyst and Forerunner Ventures, Fay emerged with $25M in May.
Meanwhile, food desert-focused FarmboxRx eclipsed $35M in revenue, and Kaiser Permanente launched a Food Is Medicine Center of Excellence to advance healthcare integration.
Offering another approach, glucose monitoring platforms are adding AI-led health coaching capabilities to support behavior change.
Punchline: Drugs can jumpstart weight loss, but long-term health rests on lifestyle shifts. A zero-risk step therapy, food prescriptions could soon become core to primary care.
