Our investment in Maven Health
Meet Maven Health, one of the recent additions to the S2S Ventures portfolio! We’re excited to announce our investment into this young medtech startup, a deal led by David Campbell and supported by Arnout Devos.
Maven Health is tackling the preventive healthcare market by providing comprehensive metabolic wellbeing assessments based on non-invasive saliva samples. To assess the level of metabolic health, most healthcare professionals currently rely on multiple blood samples and a limited number of indicators of your metabolism. Maven Health helps healthcare professionals, clinical labs, and nutritionists assess the metabolic wellbeing of their patients by measuring a great number of indicators from a simple non-invasive saliva sample, which allows them to know if and how to treat patients within their preventive care programs by supporting them with detailed and actionable insights.
Read our short public memo further to learn more about this high potential start-up👇
Problem 💉
Metabolic diseases such as heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes affect millions worldwide. Approximately 20–25% of the global population lives with metabolic syndrome, which is characterized by the presence of at least 3 of the following conditions: high waist circumference, high triglycerides, high blood pressure, high blood glucose, and low high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, sometimes known as ‘good’ cholesterol (see sources below).
One of life’s unfortunate realities is the negative relationship between metabolic disease progression and the effectiveness of health interventions. The more advanced a disease is, the harder it is to fight. Conversely, it is difficult to identify the presence or likelihood of a disease in its early stages. As such, diagnosis often occurs when the effectiveness of intervention is relatively low. This is where preventive medicine comes in — we can likely improve our ability to prevent metabolic diseases by following healthcare measures early on.
Preventive healthcare however generally comes with its own limitations. Problems include:
- the invasiveness of disease screening, with healthcare professionals needing to collect indicators through methods such as blood samples
- the difficulty of interpreting the multiple datapoints collected from a given patient to make an informed holistic assessment
- the lack of visibility and interpretability of screening results for patients, which makes behavioral change more difficult
Product 🖥️
Maven Health’s product is a comprehensive end-to-end metabolic wellbeing diagnostic service. They provide healthcare providers with a non-invasive saliva test and an accessible platform to track the metabolic wellbeing of their patients. This service allows for early detection of deteriorations and personalisation of preventive care.
The solution consists of three core components. The easy to use non-invasive saliva-based test enables healthcare professionals to easily assess patient samples. A proprietary, novel, cost-effective, and scalable analytical method employing nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy measures a wealth of metabolic information from just a single sample in a fast and easy way, without much processing needed. Finally, Maven Health’s proprietary data transformation pipeline transforms this metabolic information into understandable and actionable metabolic health insights, delivered though an intuitive data platform, maximizing the usability for the healthcare professional.
Team 👥
When we first met the Maven Health team, we were extremely impressed by the level of expertise and complementarity that the two co-founders, Christopher and Kevin, had on the technical front.
- Co-CEO and CSO (S for Science) Christopher Wall, a pharmacist, has research experience in cellular metabolism and biology, alongside his practical pharmaceutical knowledge. He completed his PhD specializing in mitochondrial functions at EPFL in 2021.
- Co-CEO and CTO Kevin Hof is a data scientist with 4+ years experience, including at RoomPriceGenie, a Founderful-backed startup. He has a master’s degree in Medical Biotechnology from Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
While the team was complemented by strong technical advisors, one of the key weaknesses that we identified was the absence of business experience. This doubt was quickly made obsolete by the onboarding of Alexandre Aubert as Head of Business Development. Alexandre brings a wealth of marketing and market intelligence experience through his previous roles, including almost 5 years at Roche.
With these combined competencies being such a good match for their vision at Maven Health, the team was one of the major reasons behind our decision to invest. This feeling was only reinforced by how great they are to collaborate with.
Market 📈
The field of preventive metabolic healthcare solutions is not void of competition, which is also a green signal to show a rapidly growing market (which is indeed the case). We believe that what makes Maven Health stand apart is the non-invasiveness of their method, combined with the way they have tailored the value proposition to healthcare professionals rather than to patients directly. Further, the rates of diseases such as diabetes and cancer are accelerating market growth due to population ageing and unhealthiness. As a result, recent years saw a rise in government funding and private investments in the metabolomics market. All these elements truly underline the timeliness of Maven Health’s solution.
Traction 🚀
The team has managed to successfully close several pilot projects with private clinics in Switzerland. These projects allows them to already generate income, refine their value proposition, expand their network, and show traction to future customers and investors. Revenues are generated with each patient that receives a metabolic wellbeing assessment. They are also eyeing more attractive projects in the pipeline, and have had encouraging discussions with clinical laboratories and pharmacy groups as well as private clinics.
Future 🔮
Our decision to back Maven Health reflects our hypothesis that the future of healthcare is preventive and personalized. By delivering bespoke metabolic wellbeing assessments based on advanced data analytics, Maven Health empowers individuals to proactively manage their health. As the demand for personalized healthcare continues to increase, the startup stands ready to make significant strides in this dynamic landscape. Furthermore, many synergies could be leveraged with other preventive healthcare tools in the future, from continuous glucose monitoring devices to fitness wearables.
Today, we see a lot of value in the way Maven Health has structured its logistics. By working with world-leading Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) laboratory institutions such as CERM in Firenze, and Spectral Service in Cologne, they ensure the highest level of quality in the analysis of samples. This synergy further allows them to channel all their focus on their core competency: the processing of NMR results to compile in-depth metabolic wellbeing assessments tailored to the needs of healthcare providers. Tomorrow, we see many avenues for Maven Health to explore high-value partnerships — through strategic collaborations with healthcare providers, insurers, and wellness entities, the startup will be able to extend its impact globally, offering comprehensive metabolic health solutions to individuals at scale.
Written by David Campbell
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Saklayen MG. The Global Epidemic of the Metabolic Syndrome. Curr Hypertens Rep. 2018 Feb 26; 20(2):12. doi: 10.1007/s11906–018–0812-z. Link.
Qureshi D, Collister J, Allen NE, Kuźma E, Littlejohns T. Association between metabolic syndrome and risk of incident dementia in UK Biobank. Alzheimer’s Dement. 2024; 20:447–458. https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.13439. Link.
