Latest news with #Superpower
Business Insider
30-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Buzzy AI health startup Superpower is making another acquisition to power its food-as-medicine push
Consumers increasingly want to take control of their health — including by taking control of what they eat. Buzzy AI startup Superpower just made its second acquisition of the year to capitalize on that interest. Superpower is building a health AI "super app" that combines biannual lab tests with users' health histories to create personalized lifestyle recommendations. The startup announced $30 million in Series A funding, led by Forerunner, just last month. Now, Superpower is buying at-home lab testing company Base, Business Insider has learned exclusively. Base, started by former Amazon engineer Lola Priego, provides at-home blood and saliva tests to help consumers improve habits like their sleep and diet with personalized lifestyle recommendations. It was Base's diet analysis business that sold Superpower on the deal. Superpower CEO Jacob Peters told BI that the startup bought Base primarily for its wealth of nutritional data, which he said "would save us a lot of clinical R&D" as Superpower digs deeper into food-as-medicine care. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Priego launched Base in 2019, and the company last raised a $3.4 million seed round in 2021 led by Female Founders Fund. Superpower is far from the only player interested in the nutrition market. Investors are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into nutrition care startups like Nourish and Fay Nutrition, while movements like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s " Make America Healthy Again" are taking hold. Those trends, too, are picking up steam with the explosion of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and a growing consumer fascination with longevity, as some look to hack their health and extend their lifespans. Superpower hits on that longevity care demand, with scores provided on its app measuring users' "biological age" and overall health. The startup even hired its own "chief longevity officer" in September. Still, Peters said Superpower isn't a longevity startup, adding that he thinks most consumers simply want to get a better hold on their health — "If you superpower your health, you superpower your life." Superpower is making M&A central to its strategy, an unusual approach for an early-stage startup. Base is its second acquisition of the year; Superpower bought women's health startup Feminade in January. Peters said he expects to see more consolidation across digital health to combine point solutions tackling small slices of the market. And Superpower itself wants to connect a broad range of offerings into its app so patients can get all of their health needs met in one place. "This probably won't be our last M&A," Peters laughed. Reimagining concierge care with AI Peters launched Superpower in 2023 alongside cofounders Max Marchione and Kevin Unkrich, CTO, born from their personal experiences with a broken healthcare system. Peters, for one, was diagnosed with the autoimmune disorder Crohn's disease a few years ago and spent four months in the hospital, undergoing multiple surgeries and racking up seven-figure bills. "It was a big light bulb moment for me: as a person with health challenges, no one's really coming to save you," he said. He and the Superpower team set out to create an AI-powered experience inspired by concierge medicine, which typically offers more attentive healthcare at a higher price tag, and making that style of care more widely accessible with technology. Its approach has attracted investors from Susa Ventures to Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. Superpower's members take biannual lab tests, either at home or at one of Superpower's partner labs, to assess more than 100 blood biomarkers. The Superpower app then pulls in user data from patient medical records, the lab tests, and wearables, and surfaces AI-driven insights based on that data to help its members optimize their health across their nutrition, sleep, and hormones. Superpower's AI-generated action plans are reviewed by human care teams behind the scenes. Users can message their care teams to get further combined guidance from those human providers and AI. Many consumer health startups launch to focus on one or a few problems, as Ro and Hims and Hers did with conditions like erectile dysfunction and hair loss. Superpower wants to take a different approach, aiming to be comprehensive from day one, so the startup can be known for its platform rather than for any single offering, Peters said. That ambition comes with a cost: Superpower's memberships run $500 a year. While lower than what most Americans spend on healthcare in a year, that price point could put the app out of reach for many consumers. Peters said the Superpower team is thinking hard about how to make its services available to the largest group possible. Superpower launched to sell directly to consumers, but in the future, Peters said the startup may consider contracting with employers to cover the costs of its memberships for employees. "We want to build a platform that makes it easy to get the world's best healthcare to everyone at very low and accessible costs. That's the north star for us, to put a healthcare super app and AI doctor on everyone's phone," he said.
Medscape
23-05-2025
- Health
- Medscape
How Old Are You? Pay $799 Here to Answer
Jeffrey Benabio, MD, MBA Last week, I had brunch with a professional athlete — the kind people queue up for autographs. I thought of asking for one, but there wasn't a right moment between "nice to meet you" and "Hey, could you pass the maple syrup?" She is a friend of a friend and, as is true of most people, including celebrity athletes, quite nice. "What's next for you?" we wondered as she nears retirement. "I'm trying to live to 120," she replied, humbly but seriously. Years ago, that answer would have sounded kooky. How would one even attempt such a thing? Other than following the regimen of Jeanne Calment— quit working, drink port before dinner, and smoke a cigarette at bedtime. Calment remains the longevity world champion, having exceeded Easter Wiggins's record of 116 years in 1991 before passing away in 1997 at the age of 122. She is the only human verified to have lived past 120. To declare you're trying to break a record that billions have failed to achieve is ambitious. But then again, I've never had anyone ask for my autograph — maybe I'm setting my goals too low. None of us were surprised by her answer; living long is having a moment. Silicon Valley types, bored of being merely rich, have turned their sights toward living long enough to spend their fortunes. Venture capitalists are pouring billions into startups with names like "Forever Labs" and "Superpower." Longevity medicine is everywhere — podcasts, bestseller lists, even my neighborhood coffee shop, which offers something called a "cellular regeneration latte" for $17. This represents a shift in how we think about medicine. Physician-podcaster Peter Attia, MD, describes the next era as 'Medicine 3.0,' a personalized and proactive alternative to the reactive, one-size-fits-all model of traditional healthcare. In this vision, prevention goes beyond vaccines and cholesterol checks to include continuous biometric monitoring, targeted supplementation, and algorithm-informed lifestyle choices. The promise? A longer 'health span' — more years lived in good health — and a compressed period of decline before death. The movement is seductive. It blends precision science with empowerment and self-optimization. But it also comes with caveats: high costs, uneven evidence, and a tendency to overemphasize what's measurable. This is what social scientist Daniel Yankelovich called the 'McNamara fallacy,' named after the Vietnam-era defense secretary who prioritized only what could be quantified — body counts, troop levels — while ignoring the human complexity of war. The same fallacy looms over longevity medicine: What's easy to track isn't always what matters most. Yet receiving your biological age number, which you paid $799 for, feels significant. If you're 53 and it says your biological age is 43, you feel like you got your money's worth! You can now feel smug around your fast-aging friends. (If it says 63, then better double up on your supplements). Either way, you likely have misplaced confidence in what you've learned. Different tests often give wildly different results. That doesn't make them worthless, but their precision masks a lack of clear meaning. Meanwhile, unquantifiable things like joy, purpose, and connection might do just as much for aging well, but there isn't a telomere test for those. The data-driven approach also skews incentives. If a supplement reliably increases NAD+ levels, it can be marketed around that metric, even if there's no proof that higher NAD+ leads to a longer or healthier life. Meanwhile, research by epidemiologist Jay Olshansky shows that, despite vast technological gains, improvements in life expectancy have slowed since 1990. Even a major intervention — say, reducing all-cause mortality by 20% — would only add a couple of years to the average American life. No supplement or space-age mattress comes close to that impact. So, while some gains may be real, they are likely smaller than we imagine — or than we're being sold. The odds of living to 100 have increased but remain slim. Proven strategies for increasing health span are well known: Eat well, exercise, limit alcohol, foster relationships, and choose your parents wisely. Most other protocols are unproven. Sure, you can spend your discretionary income on longevity hacks. Or you can spend it on having more children. (Ironically, having three or more appears to decrease life expectancy — but what a life it is!). I plan to live as long as I can but not at the expense of things that matter. I exercise, drink lightly, take a few vitamins, and love abundantly. I'm not trying to cheat death, just stay connected to this body that carries me through the world and to the people who deserve my care and attention for however long I get to be here. Importantly, although extending life is the goal, researchers haven't yet shown that morbidity can be meaningfully compressed. Living even more years with pain, macular degeneration, hearing loss, dementia, or heart failure is a mixed blessing. As one of my elderly patients once put it: 'People are stupid to think living to 100 is something to achieve, instead of something that happens to you if you're unlucky enough not to die younger.' As for our athlete friend, she has some statistical advantages. Professional athletes tend to live about 5 years longer than average. (Though apparently, making the Hall of Fame cancels that benefit — perhaps Pete Rose had the last laugh). With the current US life expectancy for women at 80.2 years, she's likely to make it to 85.2. She still has 35 years to go for 120. That's a lot of curcumin.
The South African
17-05-2025
- The South African
Zimbabwean arrested smuggling explosives at Beitbridge border
Police arrested a 28-year-old Zimbabwean national at the Beitbridge Port of Entry in Limpopo on Friday, 16 May 2025, after discovering a large consignment of explosives hidden in a trailer. According to South African Police Services, police caught the man during a routine inspection at around 06:30. A police dog detected suspicious items inside two red 50 kg polyester bags. The trailer, towed by a white Toyota Quantum, contained six reels of detonating fuses, 2 505 Superpower units, 90 blasting cartridges, and 100 Carmex connector capped fuses. The Musina Explosives Unit safely neutralised the explosives and collected forensic samples for analysis. Preliminary investigations suggest the explosives were en route to Cape Town. The suspect faces charges under Section 28(1) of the Explosives Act 26 of 1956 for unlawful possession of explosives. He is expected to appear before the Musina Magistrate's Court on Monday, 19 May 2025. Lieutenant General Thembi Hadebe, the provincial police commissioner, praised the officers involved. 'The interception of these explosives highlights the effectiveness of our border security measures. We will continue to strengthen efforts to prevent illegal activities that threaten national safety,' she said. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1. Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
Sydney Morning Herald
11-05-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Ross Garnaut: Prophet with a sunny vision of our glorious future
What we need is some sort of economist prophet who can help us overcome this existential threat, not an army of blinkered economists telling us all that matters is raising our material standard of living. Fortunately, among the profession's abundance of unproductive thinkers is a lone prophetic, and so productive, thinker, Professor Ross Garnaut, who sees not only how we can minimise the economic cost of the transition to clean energy, but also what we can do for an encore. What we can do to fill the vacuum left by the looming collapse of our fossil fuel export business (which, by chance, happens to be our highest-productivity industry). Because economists are such incurious people, Garnaut seems to have been the first among them to notice that, purely by chance, Australia's natural endowment also includes a relative abundance of sun and wind. Until now, we thought these were non-resources and of little or no commercial value. It took Garnaut to point out that, in a post-carbon world, they had the potential be our new-found comparative advantage. To provide us with a whole new way of making a bundle from exports, while generating many new jobs for the miners to move to. When you add the possibility of structural change to the rules of conventional economics, you get what's a scary thought for many economists: maybe our natural endowment isn't ordained by the economic gods to be unchangeable through all eternity. Maybe there are interventions fallible governments should be making to move our economic activity from one dimension of our natural endowment to another. Maybe such a switch is too high-risk and involves too many 'positive externalities' (monetary benefits than can't be captured by the business doing the investing) for us to wait for market forces to take us to this brave new world. Loading Maybe changing circumstances can change the nature of our comparative advantage in international trade, meaning the government has to nudge the private sector in a new direction. It was Garnaut who first had the vision of transforming Australia into a 'Superpower' in a world of ubiquitous renewable energy. And it was he who uncovered the facts that made this goal plausible. Exporting our fossil fuels is cheap, whereas exporting renewable energy would be much more expensive. So whereas it was more economic to send our coal and iron ore overseas to be turned into steel, in the post-carbon world it soon will be more economic to produce green iron and other green metals in Australia and then export them. In a speech last week, Garnaut acknowledged that, in its first term, the Albanese government began to lay the policy foundations for the Superpower project. The economic principles are set out clearly and well by Treasury's 'national interest framework' for A Future made in Australia, released after last year's budget, he says. The re-elected Albanese government has already restated its commitment to the project. Garnaut says there's much more for the government to do in creating the right incentives for our manufacturers to re-organise and expand. Loading Research sponsored by his Superpower Institute finds that Australian exports of goods embodying renewable energy could reduce global emissions by up to 10 per cent. So we can contribute disproportionately to global decarbonisation by supplying goods embodying renewable energy that the high-income economies of Northeast Asia and Europe cannot supply at reasonable cost from their own resources. This would 'generate export income for Australians vastly in excess of that provided by the gas and coal industries that will decline as the world moves to net zero emissions over the next few decades'. Garnaut concludes: 'The new industries are large enough to drive restoration of growth in Australian productivity and living standards after the dozen years of stagnation that began in 2013.' The present fashion of obsessing with productivity improvement for its own sake is counterproductive and probably won't achieve much. We should get our priorities right and focus on fixing our most fundamental problems – unfairness between the generations, action on climate change and fully exploiting the opportunities presented by our newfound strength in renewable energy – and let productivity look after itself.
The Age
11-05-2025
- Business
- The Age
Ross Garnaut: Prophet with a sunny vision of our glorious future
What we need is some sort of economist prophet who can help us overcome this existential threat, not an army of blinkered economists telling us all that matters is raising our material standard of living. Fortunately, among the profession's abundance of unproductive thinkers is a lone prophetic, and so productive, thinker, Professor Ross Garnaut, who sees not only how we can minimise the economic cost of the transition to clean energy, but also what we can do for an encore. What we can do to fill the vacuum left by the looming collapse of our fossil fuel export business (which, by chance, happens to be our highest-productivity industry). Because economists are such incurious people, Garnaut seems to have been the first among them to notice that, purely by chance, Australia's natural endowment also includes a relative abundance of sun and wind. Until now, we thought these were non-resources and of little or no commercial value. It took Garnaut to point out that, in a post-carbon world, they had the potential be our new-found comparative advantage. To provide us with a whole new way of making a bundle from exports, while generating many new jobs for the miners to move to. When you add the possibility of structural change to the rules of conventional economics, you get what's a scary thought for many economists: maybe our natural endowment isn't ordained by the economic gods to be unchangeable through all eternity. Maybe there are interventions fallible governments should be making to move our economic activity from one dimension of our natural endowment to another. Maybe such a switch is too high-risk and involves too many 'positive externalities' (monetary benefits than can't be captured by the business doing the investing) for us to wait for market forces to take us to this brave new world. Loading Maybe changing circumstances can change the nature of our comparative advantage in international trade, meaning the government has to nudge the private sector in a new direction. It was Garnaut who first had the vision of transforming Australia into a 'Superpower' in a world of ubiquitous renewable energy. And it was he who uncovered the facts that made this goal plausible. Exporting our fossil fuels is cheap, whereas exporting renewable energy would be much more expensive. So whereas it was more economic to send our coal and iron ore overseas to be turned into steel, in the post-carbon world it soon will be more economic to produce green iron and other green metals in Australia and then export them. In a speech last week, Garnaut acknowledged that, in its first term, the Albanese government began to lay the policy foundations for the Superpower project. The economic principles are set out clearly and well by Treasury's 'national interest framework' for A Future made in Australia, released after last year's budget, he says. The re-elected Albanese government has already restated its commitment to the project. Garnaut says there's much more for the government to do in creating the right incentives for our manufacturers to re-organise and expand. Loading Research sponsored by his Superpower Institute finds that Australian exports of goods embodying renewable energy could reduce global emissions by up to 10 per cent. So we can contribute disproportionately to global decarbonisation by supplying goods embodying renewable energy that the high-income economies of Northeast Asia and Europe cannot supply at reasonable cost from their own resources. This would 'generate export income for Australians vastly in excess of that provided by the gas and coal industries that will decline as the world moves to net zero emissions over the next few decades'. Garnaut concludes: 'The new industries are large enough to drive restoration of growth in Australian productivity and living standards after the dozen years of stagnation that began in 2013.' The present fashion of obsessing with productivity improvement for its own sake is counterproductive and probably won't achieve much. We should get our priorities right and focus on fixing our most fundamental problems – unfairness between the generations, action on climate change and fully exploiting the opportunities presented by our newfound strength in renewable energy – and let productivity look after itself.
