Hologram Sciences Seeks to Digitize Personal Nutrition

Hologram Sciences, a tech startup seeking to provide a digital platform that brings consumers a combination of health diagnostics, digital coaching, and personalized nutrition programs, recently received a $100 million investment from Royal DSM, which has made personalized nutrition a key pillar of its nutrition strategy.

Aiming to provide consumers with more holistic solutions to manage their health, the mission-driven company intends to provide clinically proven products that target various conditions. As solutions are validated in-market, they will be available to DSM customers as well. Hologram will also work to incubate products with DSM customers and partners, based on real-time analytics which are built into the program.

The company, which features an executive team made up of individuals with former leading roles in Silicon Valley, at companies including Uber, Fitbit, and Facebook, will be led by Ian Brady, who co-founded the U.S. financial services firm SoFi. Brady transitioned from the field of finance to health tech after his wife was diagnosed with gestational diabetes for the third time, at which point he became attuned to the lack of an all-encompassing personalized nutrition service answering to the needs of his wife and others. So, he founded one.

“I am excited to be advancing the availability of personalized nutrition so no one else needs to go through the struggles my family experienced,” Brady said. “With a highly dynamic team combining expertise in tech, brand marketing, and nutrition innovation and science power of DSM, we can reveal that our first solution will be a rapid immunity concept, addressing the current acute concern over the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”

Along with nutritional supplements and diagnostics, the company’s digital platform will provide consumers with a personalized experience. The interface will allow for access to experts such as registered dietitians to provide consumers with an understanding of the bigger picture of health, including factors of nutrition, lifestyle, and more.

Hologram Sciences’ expanding team currently includes Brady, along with Jess Graham as chief marketing officer, whose previous experience includes serving as the global head of consumer product marketing for Instagram; Nate Matusheki, PhD, chief science officer; Thomas McMennamin, chief product officer; and Laura Artigas, chief commercial officer.

In a recent interview with Nutraceuticals World, Brady offered details regarding the challenges, opportunities, and advantages that come with launching an all-in-one digital platform covering such a wide range of health and wellness products and services.

NW: What challenges present in the nutrition industry—especially in personalized nutrition—do you believe Hologram will be best equipped to overcome?

Brady: What’s challenging about the personalized nutrition industry is that for the most part, it’s not very personal. What I mean by that is most solutions on the market today really only address general health and wellness and are actually not that specific.

Instead, we focus on three core elements that provide our customers with a personalized holistic experience. First, we use diagnostics via at-home testing kits to precisely determine where each individual is on their journey and use data points, such as nutrition, sleep, stress, and environmental factors to understand the variables at play for each individual. Second, we provide a digital platform where users receive personalized recommendations to help improve or maintain that initial baseline level. Recommendations may include vitamins, supplements, and lifestyle or behavioral changes.

Finally, we deploy a network of experienced registered dietitians that can answer questions and provide live support as users progress on their health journey. Most importantly, each of these platforms is specifically focused on the most sought-after specific health conditions and goals.

NW: Could you tell us a bit about Hologram’s digital platform, and what the day-to-day experience of interacting with it as a consumer will be like?

Brady: The digital platform uses the power of data to give back to our customers. As we collect important personal and environmental data, our app users can expect practical recommendations as it analyzes this data over time, as well as recommendations from our live coaches. In other words, the digital platform is essential for achieving, measuring, and maintaining an individual’s desired health goals over time.

NW: Could you describe some of the roles that Royal DSM might be taking as a major investor in the company?

Brady: Royal DSM has a long history of making strategic investments within the personalized nutrition space. Supported by this deep legacy in wellness and nutrition, Hologram is well-positioned to provide science-backed products, custom solutions, and expert services. The company will be a start-up-like channel through which DSM, its partners, and customers can rapidly test novel innovations in-market with consumers, enabling innovation cycles that span weeks and months, rather than years. Together, we will work to create consumer products that go beyond the ordinary, to help keep the world’s growing population healthy.

NW: What kind of tests or other diagnostic tools do you anticipate using to help personalize a nutrition program unique to each person?

Brady: Our diagnostic tool includes easy-to-use, at-home testing kits to make sure people can establish a baseline “score” for a specific condition alongside their broader health status. Based on this test result, our customers will receive personalized recommendations, which may include the addition of a vitamin or supplement to their diet, as well as lifestyle and behavior changes to help each individual achieve their health goals in a way that is very specific to their needs and the world around them.

NW: What kinds of consumer insights might Hologram be looking for in order to incubate new products? Will consumer research mostly be driven by the data-gathering built into the platform?

Brady: We’re committed to bringing new solutions to market that provide holistic solutions to real consumer needs where we can meaningfully help people live healthier and better lives. Our collaboration with Royal DSM enables early access to consumer insights, behaviors, and clinical data that we will use to inform the development of new products. Our goal is to release new products annually and we are exploring a broad range of health conditions including pre-diabetes, women’s health, and sports performance. We will also use secure data collected from the app in aggregated format to determine trends, patterns, and behaviors that may improve future products and user experience.

NW: What kind of specific opportunities and roles will dietitians have working with Hologram’s users?

Brady: Dietitians will play a key role in every product that we develop. We will leverage their expertise in two ways. First, we’ll tap into the knowledge and expertise of registered dietitians (RDs), scientists, and nutritionists throughout the research and development process to ensure our products are meeting nutrition standards, behavioral science best practices, and clinical effectiveness. Second, RDs are part of our live coaching offering that users can access through our digital platform. They are available to answer questions and provide tips for staying on course to achieve each individual’s health goals.

NW: With the company planning to set the stage with a rapid immunity concept, could you tell us about some of the opportunities and challenges you’ve seen so far in developing an immune support initiative on a more personalized level?

Brady: The biggest challenge here is that the nutrition market is overcrowded and loaded with unsubstantiated claims, fad diets, and misinformation. The opportunity here is in direct response to this challenge. We’re deeply committed to creating and rapidly scaling products that are backed by proven science, pioneering technology, and habit-building. My team and I are eager to disrupt this space with a personalized, digital approach and we’re determined to dispel the myth that vitamins and supplements are the “wild west” of the health industry. 

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Mike Montemarano has been the Associate Editor of Nutraceuticals World since February 2020. He can be reached at MMontemarano@RodmanMedia.com.