Foxo Health is building a personal healthcare assistant that gives insights into your health and wellness

During the first wave of the pandemic, Subhendu Panigrahi, now the founder of healthcare startup Foxo Health, contracted Covid. As the effects of the corona virus impacted his health, Panigrahi decided to take a year-long sabbatical from work to focus on improving his health, particularly his gut health.

During this time, he learned about new areas of healthcare such as systems biology, genetics, and multi-omics. Systems biology understands how different parts of living organisms interact with each other at various scales, while multi-omnics combines insights from various fields and provides a more complete understanding of how cells and organisms function.

Panigrahi consulted experts and worked closely with doctors in these areas. After a year of focused effort, his health improved. This experience helped him realise the need for preventive healthcare, and he decided to pursue this path as an entrepreneur.

Earlier this year, Panigrahi, founded Foxo Health, a Bengaluru-based healthcare startup, along with Sanmaya Kumar Dhal and Akash Gehani.

Foxo Health serves as a personal health assistant, offering tailored insights into users’ health profiles by analysing blood reports, symptoms, and other critical data. It enables differential diagnosis, root cause analysis, and early disease detection—critical components of preventive healthcare.

Powered by an AI co-pilot live on WhatsApp, the personal health assistant encourages users to maintain healthy habits. The platform creates a digital twin of each user and delivers personalised recommendations and timely reminders to support their well-being.

The AI is driven by advanced small language models and a proprietary decision engine, trained on datasets provided by diagnostic labs and hospitals, and open-source health data from the Human Metabolome, Human Microbiome, and Human Genome Projects. It also uses demographic surveys to track health trends.

The team

Prior to starting Fox Health, Panigrahi was the co-founder and CEO of Skillenza, a hackathon platform. An alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, Panigrahi has also worked as a shelf life engineer at Infratab. After Skillenza was acquired, he joined Bloom Ventures, where he worked for almost a year. During this time, he started developing the idea of a personal health assistant and reached out to Akash Gehani to join him as an angel investor.

Gehani subsequently joined as a co-founder. With a background in sales and product management, Gehani had co-founded Instamojo, a direct-to-consumer technology platform.

Shortly after, the third co-founder, Sanmaya Kumar Dhal, a serial entrepreneur with expertise in technology and design, joined the startup. He had earlier co-founded 8i Creations, a user experience company, and also served as CEO and co-founder of SlickAccount, a cloud-based GST accounting software company.

Fox Health has a team of three doctors trained in functional medicine and systems biology who serve as advisors. They are also shareholders, holding equity and playing an integral role in the company’s growth and development.

The startup also has nutritionists who specialise in getting to the root causes of diseases.

How it works

The user’s journey begins with a comprehensive and advanced health assessment that includes a series of diagnostic checks and tests that evaluate over 300 biomarkers, including cardiac markers, heavy metal load, and gut markers.

There are also advanced screenings such as DEXA scan and specialised ageing tests to assess the user’s biological age.

These tests provide a holistic view of the user's health, examining physiological, neurocognitive, and cellular/genetic aspects. Based on the results, the user gains a deep understanding of their health, including the risks and how quickly they are ageing. A unique health score is provided to the user.

Following this in-depth evaluation, AI and human experts create a personalised plan designed to improve the user’s overall health, promoting long-term wellness and longevity.

The programme is entirely lifestyle-focused, covering components such as food routines, exercise regimens, and tailored advice based on personal goals. It also addresses crucial factors such as stress management and emphasises the importance of sleep habits for overall health.

“Since many of the tests offered are advanced and cannot be performed independently, the company will assist users every step of the way,” says Gehani.

Fox Health’s programme is currently on an ‘invite-only’ basis, with new slots opened every six months. Over 1,000 users have utilised the programme.

Panigrahi points out that their target audience would be 5 million to 6 million individuals with an annual salary of more than Rs 1 crore. The customers would include CXOs of startups and tech companies, HNIs, and ultra HNIs.

The programme is targeted at a “small but highly motivated” group of individuals who are deeply invested in their health, particularly with regard to longevity and preventive healthcare, says Gehani.

“These people are mostly at the top of the pyramid. But, like every trend, this will also start percolating among the masses, and they are going to be adopting it in a few years,” he adds.

Foxo Health (earlier Umrit) was part of YourStory’s Tech30 cohort of the most promising startups of 2024.