Companies to Watch - January 2020

Five New York Health and Wellness Companies to Watch

January 16, 2020 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Five New York Health and Wellness Companies to Watch

It’s a new year and a new decade, and instead of making diet and exercise resolutions that inevitably get left behind, we have another idea: just start treating yourself well. The health and wellness industry keeps booming year after year, and now more than ever, wellness isn’t a luxury to splurge on occasionally, but a daily essential to your physical and mental health.Technology can help with that, and with the largest bioscience workforce in the country, it’s no surprise that New York is the top pick for founders looking to set up shop. As the industry continues to grow, technology is making health solutions more affordable, accessible, and effective, so those New Year’s resolutions can become second-nature routines.That’s why, this month, we’re profiling five startups helping you be the best you. Get a peek at their work below, and read more about them here. 

WelloryWhat does your company do?Wellory founder and CEO Emily Hochman: Wellory is a wellness technology company on a mission to make the world a healthier place, starting with demystifing and democratizing nutrition for today’s consumers. Whether your goal is to lose weight, sleep better, or improve your overall health, it all starts with eating well. We connect you with a personal certified nutrition expert who educates you, supports you, and holds you accountable to eating healthy. There’s lots of information out there — much of it misleading or inaccurate — about the most effective diets, cleanses, etc. How does Wellory ensure its users are receiving better-vetted guidance? EH: Information overload is a big reason why Wellory exists. As a business, we’re directly addressing the fact that there is just too much out there — as a culture, we’ve somehow landed in a place where it’s considered normal to try multiple different restrictive or elimination diets every year. Our goal is to clear all of the clutter and get back to the fundamental basics of nutrition, helping our clients learn how to eat mindfully and intentionally. Quality assurance is the most important aspect of our business. We have a network of over 650 coaches, and we vet and qualify every coach before bringing them onto the platform to work with our clients. Our providers believe in and teach the fundamentals of nutrition rather than any one specific diet. 

 

JourneyWhat does your company do?Journey founder and CEO Stephen Sokoler: Journey is on a mission to help all people live happier, healthier, less stressed lives by building the world’s most supportive and inclusive meditation community, both online and off. We believe that meditation is more impactful when done with others so we teach group meditation classes in local communities, organizations around the world, and through the Journey Live app.Before founding Journey, you were building companies that serviced the business sector. What led you to shift to a meditation service?SS: In 2011, while living in Sydney, I found meditation and it changed my life. I thought that if we could bring meditation to people in a simple, approachable, secular way, it would really resonate. So I put together a team of experts in science and meditation and created an accessible program. I launched it first as a mental wellbeing program for companies and organizations looking to help manage employees’ stress and mental health. Then we brought it to more people with the launch of Journey LIVE, the world’s first live, group meditation app (think Peloton for meditation). 

 

 

ElektraWhat does your company do? Elektra Health co-founders Alessandra Henderson and Jannine Versi: Elektra is bringing hormonal healthcare into the 21st century for the 31 million women currently navigating menopause in the U.S. Elektra’s next-gen telemedicine clinic offers women access to personalized, evidence-based medical care, as well as accessible educational content and a supportive community.Many of the health needs Elektra plans to address are considered taboo subjects. What are they exactly, and what do we need to break open more public conversation around them?AH & JV: If you look at how “menopause” is portrayed in our culture, at best you’ll find depictions of an uninspired, frumpy woman who has lost her youth, and at worst you’ll find images of a “crazy”, “hysterical” woman. We need to change the narrative. Menopause is the beginning of a new chapter, one that can be incredibly powerful and transformative.Women need to remember that they are not alone and that there is nothing to be ashamed of – 80% of women will experience menopausal symptoms. We’re seeing early signs of a shift in the public conversation around this, and at Elektra we’re excited to reframe the narrative and elevate women as they age. 

 

Thirty MadisonWhat does your company do?Thirty Madison co-founder and CEO Steven Gutentag: Thirty Madison is a health company bringing specialized care and treatment to everyone. Launching with Keeps, a men’s hair loss solution, followed by Cove, which focuses on migraines, and Evens, which treats acid reflux, we are continuously expanding our offering to find answers to chronic conditions. With a human-first approach that provides care and support from diagnosis to treatment and tracking, we work to improve how millions of people manage their chronic conditions.

A lot of healthcare still happens offline via more traditional models. How is Thirty Madison using technology to connect more people to treatments?SG: Healthcare is generally a fractured and disconnected experience, with consumers responsible for connecting the dots of their care. Thirty Madison is breaking through the antiquated industry with a human-first approach. We start with the customer experience in mind and build condition-specific experiences to help people successfully and affordably manage their chronic condition from start to finish.

 

Break the LoveWhat does your company do?Break the Love co-founder and CEO Trisha Goyal: Break the Love helps players of all levels learn, discover, and book recreational and competitive tennis activities. We are on a mission to create more access and equity to tennis in New York.In NYC, tennis courts are notoriously hard to reserve. Why is that? How is Break the Love solving for that process?TG: There are a lot of reasons why tennis courts are hard to reserve — a couple of the obvious reasons coming down to infrastructure and that many courts aren’t online. But at Break the Love, we also believe it’s difficult because there aren’t great online solutions out there that actually help empower parks, club business owners, and coaches to run their businesses in a sustainable way while giving players lots of choices and transparency into what is available to them. Break the Love is solving that problem by giving players of all levels the ability to discover all of the courts in NYC while creating the tools for tennis service providers to create really great programs that players want and need in the city. 

 

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