Amsterdam-based Clear.bio is a startup that measures blood glucose levels in real-time using a chip-implanted arm patch and an app. The company announced on Wednesday, November 9, that it has raised fresh funding from Amsterdam’s Achmea Innovation Fund. The investment amount remains undisclosed.
Achmea Innovation Fund invests in startups that have strategic alignment with Achmea – the largest insurer in the Netherlands. Katharina Maass, manager of Achmea Innovation Fund, says, “This is in keeping with our ambition to invest in affordable digital business models that help solve social issues, in this case relating to health. And of course, it also links with Zilveren Kruis’ mission to bring healthcare a step closer to all of us.”
Besides the Achmea Fund, Clear.bio’s co-founder, Piet Hein van Dam reports that existing investors such as Future Food Fund and Antler, have also invested in this round.
Prior to this, in March 2022, the Amsterdam healthtech startup raised €1M from food & agriculture VC Future Food Fund, Rabobank, and several prominent angels.
Helping people with a healthier lifestyle through data
Founded in 2019 by Madelon Bracke and Piet Hein van Dam, Clear.bio has developed a digital self-help tool that helps users to put together a fully personalised diet and to follow it in their day-to-day lives. The healthtech startup helps people with type 2 diabetes to be “the best and healthiest version of themselves using data instead of pills”.
Data-driven and personalised dietary advice, supported with personal guidance and step-by-step adjustments, ensure effective and sustainable changes in the diet. Clear.bio takes these success factors as the starting point for a mobile application. In the app, you log everything you eat, drink and your activity. The Clear.bio algorithm then determines the nutritional score of your meals and helps you build your own optimal nutrition plan.
Co-founder Piet Hein van Dam, says, “Real-time biodata, a smart app and nutrition coaches (via the app) provide our users with 100 per cent personal nutritional advice and 24/7 assistance to improve their eating habits and health at home themselves. We bring healthcare to the patient instead of the other way around. Digital healthcare solutions are the future: they are personalised, real-time, continuously available and give a much greater sense of control, wherever you are, even when you’re on holiday.”
Increase quality of life
The Diabetesvereniging Nederland (the Dutch Diabetes Association) and Zilveren Kruis collaborated with social partner Clear.bio to perform two pilots with patients with type 2 diabetes during the previous six months. When compared to health, patient motivation, and healthcare delivery, the outcomes of these initial pilot programmes are encouraging. In three months, several individuals were able to stop or improve their condition.
According to a statement from Clear.bio, in the Netherlands, type 2 diabetes affects over a million people, making it a major social issue. Additionally, this number is increased by thousands of new patients each week. Obviously, this has a significant effect on the individuals themselves and results in growing healthcare expenses. Clear.bio helps them learn how to enhance their quality of life and become more independent. It also lessens the strain on medical professionals.