Vitamin subscription service Vitable raises $1.9 million within 24 hours of pitching to investors

A Sydney-based healthtech using artificial intelligence (AI) to tailor sachets of vitamins and supplements for customers has raised $1.9 million from a combination of existing shareholders, institutional investors and the crowd on investment platform VentureCrowd. 

The capital raised is just shy of Vitable’s minimum target of $2 million, and comes almost two years since the company secured $5.5 million in a Series A led by Brenteca Investments – a fund established by health and wellness doyen Ben McHarg.

Founded in 2019 by Larah Loutati and Ilyas Anane, Vitable is a direct-to-consumer subscription service that gives users personalised recommendations on what vitamins they should take after answering an online questionnaire.

From there, the company’s proprietary AI and machine learning technology helps fine-tune recommended basket sizes based on a user’s likelihood to engage, build and stick to a health routine.

According to Vitable co-founder and CEO Loutati, the company is currently sending out 13,000 orders each month.

“We’ve built our whole platform - that enabled us to deliver fully personalised vitamins at scale. Every single customer gets a different recommendation – we have 2.3 million possible combinations of supplements at the moment,” Loutati explained to investors in the webinar.

“We own our whole algorithm that is powered with AI. We’ve built it with the help of health experts, nutritionists, naturopaths, pharmacists and health consultants in order to [make] the most relevant recommendations for users.”

“Looking into the future, we will capitalise on all our achievements to continue to grow in Australia and Southeast Asia. In the next 12 months, we will double the size of the business - we’re well on track to achieve this. We are also on track to achieve $100 million in revenue in the next six years.”

Vitable has over $14 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and currently ships to Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, as well as an additional two other nations in the Asia-Pacific.

Global sales currently represent 25 per cent of monthly revenue.

“This funding round is to help us continue our growth trajectory. More specifically, the money will be invested in a few different areas, one of them being brand development and growth in Australia and Asia-Pacific,” Loutati said in the webinar.

“The second piece would be developing our product – our mobile application and digital products – through innovation and continuously optimising the customer experience.

“The third piece would be investing in the team to continue onboard amazing people to help us build the business.”

According to US market research firm Grand View Research, the global vitamin supplements market size is expected to generate USD$71.37 billion (AUD $105.7 billion) in revenue in 2028, with the market anticipated to grow at an annual compound growth rate (CAGR) of 6.2 per cent from 2021 to 2028.

When asked about why the Asia-Pacific was a particularly attractive market to target, Loutati explained the company is well-placed to capitalise on Australia’s strong reputation as a vitamin exporter.

“Australia is essentially one of the largest exporters of vitamins in Asia-Pacific. The reason behind it is the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)…Australia is known for having very stringent quality processes when it comes to vitamins and supplements. In fact, they are seen are complimentary medicines, [ensuring] quality and safety,” Loutati said.

VentureCrowd founder and CEO Steve Maarbani added that Vitable is a beautiful example of how digital health solutions can help give everybody access to health services that were previously out of reach.

“Not only is Vitable targeting a huge global market, but the business is already generating strong recurring revenue that has grown 382 per cent annually since 2019 with 72 per cent of it recurring revenue and a 70 per cent gross margin. We believe this is a business at the tipping point of huge global growth,” Maarbani said.

“We are really excited about the health and wellness impact that Vitable could have on a global scale.”