The market for health apps is worth billions, according to the European intermittent fasting app Fastic. Its volume already exceeds $60B (approx €50.9B) with over 100,000 health apps. Calorie counters or pedometers can be found on almost every smartphone, as well as water trackers. Health is the theme of the latest Apple Watch Series 6, which can even measure your blood oxygen level, as well as take an ECG.
But despite the wide variety of apps available in the market, two german founders conquered the charts within a year. Combatting trends of overconsumption, the Fastic’s aims to bring intermittent fasting to the masses in an easily digestible, digitised way, helping users reconnect to their body’s natural needs.
The healthy fasting app Fastic has raised $5M (approx €4.2M) in its seed round of funding. The fund was raised together with 15 entrepreneurs and investors including well-known german entrepreneurs such as Rolf Schromgens (Trivago) and Robin Behlau (Aroundhome), Jan Beckers (Ioniq), Lawrence Leuschner (Tier Mobility), and serial-entrepreneur Benjamin Bak, among others.
About Fastic
Founded in 2019 in Berlin by Sebastian Wettcke and Phil Wayman, Fastic is a healthy fasting app that supports users in leading a new, healthy lifestyle with intermittent fasting, and takes a strong stand against disordered eating and diet culture.
It also offers users the opportunity to educate themselves on nutrition, track their progress, establish positive daily habits, practice mindfulness, and fitness, all via its app.
The founders want to use the app to combat one of the world’s biggest health risks – obesity. According to the company, about 2.2 billion people are overweight, and a total of 8 million die from the consequences every year. Intermittent fasting shows promising results in the prevention of these weight-related diseases, as well as forms of cancer and Alzheimers, by initiating a process called autophagy.
This Nobel Prize-winning process is the body’s natural self-healing mechanism and has a positive effect on general health. Since its inception, Fastic’s app has already been downloaded more than 6 million times.
Here’s how it works
- In the Fastic app, goals can be set individually, for example: losing weight, strengthening concentration, or improving general health.
- The system then determines the best fasting method as per user and reminds the user via push notifications when their customised fasting period both begins and ends.
- During the fasting phase, the body status is also displayed to show the user which processes are taking place in their body at any particular time.
- At the heart of the app is the in-app community, where users give each other tips and motivation.
US expansion
Currently, the German app is booming in the US, claims the company. With 1 in 3 Americans being heavily overweight, the interest in intermittent fasting is huge. Since the American launch in December 2019, the number of users has grown to over 1.6 million. Currently, the company is growing three times faster in English speaking countries than in German-speaking regions.
In August 2020, more Americans than Germans downloaded the app for the first time.
Co-founder Phillip Wayman says, “Americans spend more money on diets than it would take to fight world hunger. This is a problem we want to solve. With the help of our app, we provide a healthy balance between our body and our eating habits. This is particularly popular in the US. Therefore, we plan to focus on the American market, but we also want to grow in Europe and expand our team.”
In order to achieve this, Fastic aims to help push ahead with its US expansion – as they rely on a mainly remote-based work approach. The team is already working with colleagues from Berlin, Kiev, London, Zurich, and Barcelona. The network will be further expanded in order to fully exploit the development potential worldwide.
Co-founder Sebastian Wettcke grew up fasting
Sebastian Wettcke’s parents have been running a fasting hotel in Germany for 25 years, which has already led over 20,000 guests to better health through fasting. Early on, he learned that fasting has a positive effect on the whole body, and he saw how rejuvenated the guests of the hotel felt after a fasting cure.
“For me, it was clear that I wanted to bring the knowledge about this way of life to everyone. Fastic is not about quick weight loss or calorie counting, rather, we want to inspire our users to adopt a healthy lifestyle because that is the future. The solution to lead a healthier life lies in our body itself,” says the co-founder about his vision for his startup.
“The figures confirm that the approach works: so far, users have lost over 2,000 tons (based on data from 20% of all users) and fasted together for a total of 600 million hours,” he adds.
Image credits: Fasctic