Beyondbmi, a Dublin-based health tech spin-out funded by NovaUCD, has just closed a €525k pre-seed fundraising round.
John Purdy, the chairman of Ergo, Eoghan Quigley, a partner at KPMG, Conor Sheahan, the founder of CKS Finance, Paddy Dillion, Grant Thornton’s head of corporate finance, and Declan Magee, a former employee of Davy/Elkstone is among the investors in this round.
Beyondbmi completed NovaUCD’s 2021 UCD VentureLaunch Accelerator Programme. Following the conclusion of an Enterprise Ireland Commercialization Fund research project, the company was founded in 2022.
To help clients achieve long-term weight loss and health improvement in a sustainable manner, Beyondbmi has created a 12-month weight management program. This program was created by the top medical weight management experts.
To develop individually designed treatment plans that involve thorough examinations, medication, a food plan, and behavioral health improvements, Beyondbmi makes use of the most recent scientific research and therapies.
The business will use the additional funding to launch its unique Beyondbmi platform and demonstrate medical outcomes by providing patients with excess body fat access to weight loss medications, nutritional therapy, and one-on-one accountability coaching that have been recommended by doctors.
Dr. Harriet Treacy, a physician, and Peter Lumley, a product designer, founded Beyondbmi, a spin-off of the UCD School of Medicine, with assistance from senior team members, including Professor Carel Le Roux and Dr. Werd Al-Najim, world-renowned obesity scientists and clinicians from the UCD School of Medicine and UCD Conway Institute, and Professor Alex Miras from Ulster University.
“As a practicing doctor, I have treated hundreds of patients who are suffering from health concerns they are unaware are a direct result of excess body fat,” said Dr. Harriet Treacy, co-founder of Beyondbmi. High blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, anxiety, and depression are just a few of the ailments. Female health issues including PCOS and infertility are also on the rise.”
Dr. Harriet said, “Up until now, there haven’t been many weight-management strategies that have been scientifically proven to work. As a result, I met with international experts on obesity to learn how we could develop a solution that was grounded in the science of obesity.
The World Health Organization reports that an astounding 220 health issues are directly related to overweight or obesity, which affects over 60% of the population.
The goal of Beyondbmi is to offer a scientifically supported alternative to the outmoded “eat less, move more” weight-management strategy, which studies have proven to be unhelpful over the long run.
“Thankfully, we now have more effective options in the shape of new medical pharmacological therapies, paired with dietary therapy and behavioral assistance which targets the underlying biology responsible for the sensation of hunger,” Harriet Treacy continued. According to the STEP trials, this causes an average of 15% weight loss over a little more than a year, therefore we are thrilled that Beyondbmi will offer a solution that seeks to achieve these outcomes in a practical environment.
“We have created unique technology, which includes both a client and clinician-facing interface, to satisfy the specific needs of clients living with obesity and professionals practicing obesity medicine,” said Beyondbmi co-founder Peter Lumley. With the help of this, we can provide interdisciplinary treatment that is specifically tailored to treating obesity, which is harder to do with older, more generalist EHR systems.
Image Credit: Beyondbmi
