A personalised vitamins business has raised £6.5 million from investors including Alex Chesterman, the founder of Zoopla and the New York-listed Cazoo, and Richard Pennycook, a former boss of The Co-operative Group.
Vitl was founded in 2015 by Jonathan Ralph, a former City banker who, through his coverage of medical technology companies, noticed the shift towards people using more data through their fitness apps to make health decisions. Ralph believed that he could offer a better product than the generic multivitamin supplements advertised on buses on his bicycle commute home.
Vitl tailors its nutritional supplements based on customer responses to a five-minute questionnaire. It has a website to sell directly, as well as via Sainsbury’s, Boots and Holland & Barrett.
The funding round was led by Ornament Health, a Swiss-based health technology investor, alongside individual backers.
Ralph said that the funding “allows us to continue to expand our product range and distribution at a time when nutrition and wellness has become more relevant than ever. The pandemic reminded us all how important our health is and we hope to help even more people optimise and personalise their nutrition.”