Geneto: the company behind the world’s only mobile app based on genetic science launches funding round

Geneto is an Estonian company and a member of the Connected Health Cluster. They recently started a funding round in Funderbeam to raise up to 600,000 euros for product development and entering new markets. The mobile app they have created combines genetics with nutrition and exercise advice to help prevent disease and extend people’s lives.

The idea came about a few years ago in cooperation with the companies Mooncascade and Sports Gene. Jaak Sarv, CEO and co-funder of the company, had some weight issues and was looking for a solution. At the same time, software company Mooncascade and Sports Gene, founded by scientists and entrepreneurs from Tartu, were on the lookout for new technological developments. “All the pieces came together and we started work on a common app,” said Jaak Sarv. On the Estonian market, the product has been built in cooperation with Elisa and the common service is known as Elustiil (meaning “life style”). The company came out with a full product, including a genetic test, in November 2020.

For longer and happier lives

Geneto’s goal is rather simple: to help people lead longer and happier lives. However, the way they intend to reach this goal sounds much more complicated. Geneto combines genetics with nutrition and exercise advice and helps clients lose weight, eat healthier and avoid lifestyle diseases (such as type 2 diabetes) through a mobile app. “Modern genetics is no longer confined to a laboratory. Today, genetics is all about finding patterns in vast volumes of health data that can be used to predict risks and tell you something about a person that you can’t otherwise see. We have the ability to look inside a person,” says Jaak Sarv.

“Genetics helps people get to know their organism better and identify their weak and strong points. In addition, it helps establish the risk for lifestyle diseases. Learning about their own risk for genetic lifestyle diseases gives people extra motivation to make lifestyle changes. Our solution considers the individual’s genetic profile and offers nutrition and exercise advice tailored to their organism in order to implement lifestyle changes.”

Geneto is the only solution of its kind in the world. Never before has an app combined genetic tests with a nutrition and exercise app. According to Sarv, there are some analogues, but they either fall short of Geneto on the nutrition side or are weaker in terms of the science involved. “We use polygenic risk scores which take into consideration thousands of genetic variants in a person’s genome. Very few companies in the world produce this level of science,” admits Jaak Sarv.

Taking genetic data to people

Geneto is one of the few companies that brings the long-standing work of Estonian scientists – the data collected by the Estonian Genome Centre and the knowledge of geneticists – to real people. “On the one hand, this information will reach people through the medical system because GPs will get to see the data, but we are investing in disease prevention so that people do not have to turn to their GP with diseases in the first place. We want to reduce the load put on the medical system and help prevent disease,” says Jaak Sarv.

According to him, feedback from doctors has been positive. “GPs are not interested in giving nutrition advice to overweight people; they are happy to leave that to the private sector.”

Over the year, 1800 users have signed up and feedback has been very positive. According to Sarv, around one-third of new users have joined as a result of recommendations from friends. The financial indicators achieved on the Estonian market are now good enough to start targeting external markets.

Next in line: the UK, Finland and Poland

The app is currently available only in Estonian. The next step is to introduce English and target the UK, Finnish and Polish markets.

At the moment, Geneto’s food database has ca 20,000 products, recipes and foodstuffs, largely added by users. All entries have been reviewed by a nutritional consultant to ensure quality. “We believe that as we move to new markets, we can continue with the same process – initially, there will be a small selection of local foods, but users will know best what food is eaten in particular areas and will enter that information into the app,” says Jaak Sarv.

Geneto recently launched a funding round in Funderbeam to raise 300,000 to 600,000 euros. The investment will be used to enter external markets and work on product development. Geneto also plans to work with scientists at the University of Tartu Institute of Genomics to come up with new genetic risk scores. The funding round closes on November 24.

Geneto is a member of the Connected Health Cluster. The Connected Health Cluster led by Science and Business Park Tehnopol is Estonia’s biggest healthcare tech community, uniting health service providers, health tech companies and all other key interest groups in the field. The cluster’s support enables domestic cooperation projects and the export of health technological solutions to other countries. The activities of the cluster are co-financed by Enterprise Estonia.