Health Stack Brief — Issue #3
Danone acquires Huel for €1bn, Perplexity enters health, Heidi launches its first hardware and €5m for a boutique gym scaling across EMEA.
This week's big theme
This week Danone bought Huel for a whopping €1bn.
Pretty staggering for a company that a few years back would have been considered a niche product. And all the more impressive considering Danone could have easily built a rival product themselves.
But big companies are waking up to the fact that product isn't everything. Huel has created a monster of a brand with investors ranging from Steven Bartlett to Idris Elba, and a die-hard community who are constantly promoting their products.
This is food for thought (excuse the pun) for anyone building in health. Yes, having a great product is essential. But community and brand is what gets you noticed.
This week in the news
Danone acquires Huel for €1bn
Danone has agreed to acquire UK meal-replacement brand Huel in a deal reported at close to €1bn. Huel generated £214m in revenue in 2024 on a direct-to-consumer model built around plant-based powders, shakes and hot meals. (reuters.com)
Why it matters: Danone has the distribution, the shelf space and the R&D budget. What they didn't have was a brand people actually evangelise, and a community doing the marketing for free. That's what they just paid €1bn for. Worth remembering next time someone tells you brand is a nice-to-have.
Myzone unveils strength tracking, Garmin integration and Switch 2.0
Myzone announced strength tracking, a Garmin integration via Myzone Go, and Switch 2.0 at the HFA Show in San Diego. All three launch later in 2026. (well-nation.co.uk)
Why it matters: Myzone's whole business is keeping gym members consistent enough that operators renew. Opening up to Garmin removes the biggest friction point: having to buy yet another device. More users in the ecosystem means more data and a much stickier product. The device was never the point. The habit is.
Heidi launches its first hardware product: Heidi Remote
Heidi has launched Heidi Remote, a lapel-worn device that records consultations with a single button press, transcribes audio on-device and works without Wi-Fi. It's designed to replace the informal use of personal phones in consultation rooms.(heidihealth.com)
Why it matters: Heidi got to 2.5 million consultations a week by keeping their product free. That works until the infrastructure costs catch up with you. Moving transcription on-device fixes the unit economics and keeps the free tier alive. For anyone building in clinical AI, this is worth studying closely.
Perplexity launches Perplexity Health
Perplexity has launched Perplexity Health, connecting Apple Health, electronic health records from over 1.7 million providers and wearables including Fitbit, Ultrahuman and Withings to its AI. Users can ask health questions that draw from lab results, medical history and activity data simultaneously. (perplexity.ai)
Why it matters: ChatGPT Health in January, Copilot Health in March, now Perplexity. We flagged this race in Issue #1 and it's moving faster than most expected. None of these platforms are building health products. They're building the data layer that health products sit on top of. If your edge right now is "we connect to wearables," that edge has an expiry date.
Health Stack Podcast
On episode two we sat with with Ryan Hopkins, Chief Impact Officer at JAAQ, to talk about building a mental health platform that reaches people before they hit crisis point - The full episode drops next week!
Investment updates
Remi Health, €3m seed - Berlin-based Remi Health raised an oversubscribed €3m seed to scale its diagnostics-as-a-service platform, which lets health companies embed compliant diagnostic testing via a single integration without rebuilding lab operations each time. (fitt.co)
Flexzo AI, $12m Series A - London-based Flexzo AI raised $12m led by Octopus Ventures to scale its agentic workforce platform across NHS Trusts, automating staffing decisions from gap identification through to compliance validation. (uktech.news)
JAAQ, $17m - London-based JAAQ raised $17m for its mental health platform, which gives organisations a way to embed clinical expert content and AI-driven guidance directly into their products. (jaaq.app)
Parallel, $20m Series A - Paris-based Parallel raised $20m led by Index Ventures for AI agents that automate hospital admin by operating on top of existing software the way a human would, with deployment in as little as a week. (beparallel.com)
pace club, €5m pre-seed - Berlin-based pace club raised a €5m pre-seed led by Vorwerk Ventures to scale its boutique gym concept across EMEA, focused on high-density urban locations, proprietary yield management software and building community around performance. (linkedin.com)
Roles worth knowing about
Clinical AI Engineer - Heidi Health | London, Full-time Heidi is used in 2.5 million consultations a week globally. This role builds the AI that makes that possible and keeps scaling it across the NHS and beyond. (Apply here)
Director of AI Engineering (GenAI) - Flo Health | Remote, Full-time 1 in 4 women aged 18-44 in the US uses Flo. This role leads the GenAI engineering behind what comes next for the world's number one female health app. (Apply here)
VP of Engineering - Doctify | Hybrid, Full-time Doctify is changing how patients find and choose their doctors. Backed by $30m and live across 6 countries, they need an engineering leader to scale what comes next. (Apply here)
VP Data Engineering - Sano Genetics | Remote, Full-time Sano connects patients directly to precision medicine research. This role builds the data infrastructure that makes genomic studies run at scale, out of Cambridge. (Apply here)
Senior Data Scientist (Digital Health) - Punto Health | Barcelona, Hybrid Early-stage digital health data role building the models and insights that will shape how Punto understands and acts on patient health data. (Apply here)
That's it for Issue #3.
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