- January AI, a startup developing a platform that predicts diabetic patients.
- January raises $8.8 million.
- Notable investors in the round included Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen.
- Hashemi and Michael Snyder founded January AI in 2017.
January uses AI to help [its customers] make decisions about what to eat, including predictions about how they might react to different foods before they even eat them. Season of Me is designed to give users real-time insights on how diet and exercise affect your glucose levels—from which foods to avoid to when a brisk walk can bring users back into a healthy zone—and helps to build better habits in just 90 days.
Build important hacks like intermittent fasting into your routines and watch your blood sugar response improve. January AI is bringing the future to diabetes care through technology-enabled services that augment existing approaches.
January AI raises $8.8 million for AI that helps people manage their diabetes
The startup developing a platform that predicts diabetic patients’ responses to certain foods, today announced that it raised $8.8 million. Notable investors in the round included Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, and former Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer. January founder Noosheen Hashemi says the funding will be used to fill hires across January’s product, engineering, and operations teams while accelerating sign-ups for its health program.
“We believe that every day can feel like January 1st. A day to take a fresh start towards better health — and that self-improvement is a team sport. Additionally, we’re excited to expand our footprint into the enterprise, including pharma, where we already have a paying customer.
122 million Americans — half of the U.S. adult population — have diabetes or prediabetes
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 122 million Americans. About half of the U.S. adult population — have diabetes or prediabetes, with double-digit growth projected over the next decade. Diabetes is among the most expensive chronic conditions, with $1 out of every $7 in the U.S. health care system spent on diabetes care. And the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how vulnerable this population is.
January adopts a “multi-omic” approach to chronic disease management. It incorporates wearables and microbiome data to make health recommendations that address hyperglycemia. For instance, in a study presented at the 2020 American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions Conference, the company used heart rate and continuous glucose monitors to associate the reactions of 1,022 people on the diabetes spectrum with the glycemic load of the foods they ate.
Seventy percent of all participants improved their time-in-range — the amount of time their blood glucose remained within a healthy zone including 58% of individuals with the highest blood glucose levels.
