Irish tech start-up FoodMarble is targeting new growth as it continues to expand its team and focus on the US healthcare market.
The company, which has developed a digestive breath analyser that can help people control intolerances by identifying trigger foods, is expecting to record about €4 million in revenue for the year. It has expanded its programme to include a personalised breath analysis to help people manage their digestive health.
Its FoodMarble Aire identifies specific foods that could be triggering symptoms of conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), with the analysis accessed via a smartphone app. The new programme is available free of charge to all current and new users of the device.
It is designed to give users greater control and manage conditions and food intolerances. Using the data from the breath analyser, it tracks your body’s natural responses to your diet, helps you identify and eliminate foods that trigger symptoms to reduce digestive discomfort, and test specific foods to understand the impact it has on your digestive system.
It also creates custom breath and meal profiles to monitor gas patterns and dietary intake, and uses a ring interface to monitor your daily intake of foods that are known to trigger reactions, known as FODMAPs, to promote a balanced diet and digestive wellbeing.
The company is continuing to expand, with recruitment ongoing as it seeks to grow from the current 35 staff members. It also plans to raise funding in 2025 to help support its growth.
“We’re making progress,” said chief executive Aonghus Shortt. “It’s looking really strong for next year; what we’re doing in US healthcare is going really well. We’re in a good position financially, but we’ve identified this opportunity in US healthcare, and it’s gone really well, but you need the funds to be able to really scale that out.”
Although the focus will be on the US in the immediate future, Mr Shortt said FoodMarble was “open to opportunities” elsewhere as people become increasingly aware of managing gut health.
“People are a little bit more open about stuff like gut health or IBS. I think things like gluten-free and coeliac disease brought some of this to the fore,” he said.
“Tons of people are affected by these issues, and it can be hard to go to your family doctor; they don’t necessarily have the specific knowledge, or sometimes just even the time, to be able to help you out. So this is a way of being able to do it yourself.”
The Dublin-based company has now sold more than 50,000 devices in over 50 countries, conducting more than 5 million breath tests.
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