Image credits: Clear
Clear, an Amsterdam-based health tech startup, announced on Thursday that it has raised €1M in a fresh funding round from food & agriculture VC Future Food Fund, Rabobank, and several prominent angels.
Jaap Strengers of Future Food Fund says, “We look forward to working with Clear to help people improve their health through food. We are confident that the Clear team can make a significant contribution to building a more sustainable and healthier food system.”
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The announcement comes four months after raising €1.1M in funding from international impact investor Mustard Seed Maze, Dutch digital health VC firm Healthy.Capital, and several angel investors.
The company claims the funding will help it further develop its digital health programme to help people with type 2 diabetes.
Project in Rotterdam
In the Netherlands, Rotterdam is in the top 3 regions of the country with the most users of diabetes medication. To help them out, the Dutch health tech company has started a project in Rotterdam together with the Dietician practice HRC and general practitioners from Gezondheidscentrum Nieuwe Westen.
Through this project, Clear aims to become a digital self-help tool for use by general practitioners and dieticians among large groups of patients.
Zilveren Kruis, an insurance company, will support Clear’s project through innovation funds. Zilveren Kruis also contributed to the design of the project to gain insight into the (positive) effects of Clear on the health of diabetes patients.
After Rotterdam, Clear will continue to roll out the digital diabetes programme to other regions in collaboration with local health practices.
Arianne van Lavieren, Healthcare innovation consultant at Zilveren Kruis, says, “Digital healthcare solutions such as Clear can make a significant contribution to promoting (better) health, more control and independence for the user/patient. Because they can monitor their blood glucose levels in a relatively simple way, participants gain(more) insight into which foods contribute to better health for them and which do not. This can prevent rising values and thus a visit to the dietician or hospital. Healthcare innovation is necessary to be able to continue to provide the most appropriate healthcare in the right place, even with looming capacity shortages.”
Clear: What you need to know
Founded in 2019 by Piet Hein van Dam, PhD, and Madelon Bracke, PhD, Clear is a spin-out of the global early-stage VC Antler. It offers a health programme based on a personal glucose metre, an app, a proprietary glucose algorithm, and an AI food recommender.
Clear analyses blood glucose levels to detect individual reactions to food. It then provides users with personalised advice in real-time.
Users also receive real-time personalised nutritional advice via the app and a real coach. They can then adjust their meals to improve blood sugar levels and prevent lifestyle-related diseases such as diabetes.
A 2021 study into the effect of Clear personalised nutrition on type 2 diabetes patients showed that both the average blood glucose levels and the BMI of the participants decreased, and that medication could be reduced in several cases in consultation with their healthcare provider.
Founder and CEO Piet Hein van Dam says, “Diabetes 2 is a condition that is often caused by lifestyle. What is more logical to investigate if you can also revert it with your lifestyle? Before you need to start taking medication or proceed into the healthcare system, we try to find out together with you at home what you can improve. With a simple app. Through simple adjustments, with the help of our coaches and, above all, direct visibility into what nutrition does to you (in the app). In this way, we see that our participants can get out of the danger zone themselves.”
Jeroen Brouwer, Start & Scale-up banker at the Rabobank, says, “Rabobank’s mission is to stimulate the transformation of healthcare in the Netherlands. For this, we are looking for innovative entrepreneurs who contribute to higher quality, higher accessibility, and appropriate affordability within the sector. The solution developed by Clear fits in seamlessly with this. We are therefore delighted to support this startup through our Rabo Innovation Loan-a-financing solution for early-stage innovations.”
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