Dietitian Startup Fay Is Booming Thanks to Ozempic Patients, Sneaks Out With $25M From General Catalyst, Forerunner

For years, Sammy Faycurry has heard his mother and dietitian sister talk about the poor diets of many Americans and their difficulty in providing nutritional advice.

Although nearly half of the nation’s adults suffer from chronic illnesses linked to unhealthy diets, health plans have a limited number of in-network registered dietitians.

Faycurry decided to create a platform that would allow dietitians, like her mother and sister, to start their own practice while still being covered by insurance.

He began working on Fay, a startup that connects dietitians with insurance and patients, while he was an MBA student at Harvard Business School in 2021. About a year into his efforts, initially launched by Faycurry , he asked Mark Stefanski to join him as director. CTO.

On Wednesday, Fay came out of stealth after quietly raising $25 million from General Catalyst and Forerunner Ventures, with participation from 1984 and the founders of Grow Therapy and Maven Clinic.

Fay offers dietitians a franchise model that has gained popularity among certain types of health care providers in recent years. So-called business-in-box gives practitioners, such as dietitians and therapists, the tools to run their practices, including filing insurance claims, receiving payments and being connected with patients.

“Insurance companies love it because their patients are healthier. And dietitians love it because they can make almost five to eight times more money as independent practitioners with our platform than they make in a hospital,” Faycurry told TechCrunch.

Other startups that have implemented this business model include Grow, a network of therapists that last month raised an $88 million Series C led by Sequoia and Nourish, which, like Fay, connects dietitians and patients. Nourish closed its $35 million Series A in March in a round led by Index Ventures.

Fay currently has 1,000 dietitians on its platform and allows people covered by Anthem, United Healthcare, Aetna CVS, Blue Cross, Cigna, Optum, Humana and other insurers to use their services weekly or bi-weekly for price of a co-payment.

“The costs to taxpayers and employers have been skyrocketing for a long time. Everyone says diet, diet, diet, and no one has done anything about it,” Faycurry said.

Oddly enough, many of Fay’s patients take Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs, which are currently being touted as wonder drugs for weight loss. In fact, doctors who prescribe these medications require that their patients consult a dietitian so that they learn healthy habits. “We’ve seen people who have lost 25 pounds, but they still have high cholesterol because they eat a strip of bacon with every meal,” Faycurry said.

Nicole Johnson, a partner at Forerunner Ventures, said her firm was impressed with Fay’s execution. “They started very quickly and grew revenue at an incredibly fast rate while burning very little capital. And Fay also has big plans for future expansion into the food delivery business, Johnson said.