Gurgaon-Based Startup Raises ₹50 Crore Claiming to Reverse Type 2 Diabetes

Gurgaon-based Breathe Well-being, positioning itself as a diabetes-reversal company, announced on Thursday that it secured ₹50 crore in a pre-Series B round. The round was co-led by 3One4 Capital, Accel, and General Catalyst, with contributions from FounderBank Capital and Supermorpheus.

Diabetes Reversal Programme

Founded in 2020 by Rohan Verma, formerly with McKinsey, and Aditya Kaicker, formerly with Accenture, Breathe Well-being asserts its programme as an alternative to medications for preventing, managing, and reversing Type 2 Diabetes. The startup claims recognition by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) for its approach.

Employing a personalised coach-based strategy, the company focuses on behavioural and lifestyle changes to reverse diabetes. It boasts having reversed diabetes for 50,000 of its members.

Kaicker, co-founder and COO of Breathe Well-being, commented, “More than 90% of participants were able to sustain their results beyond 24 months into the programme. This indicates how engaging our entire plan is and people’s active willingness to get off the diabetes medication.”

Clinical Approach and Outcomes

Breathe Well-being utilizes a clinically-proven programme to lower blood glucose levels, facilitate weight loss, enhance glucose tolerance, and ultimately discontinue diabetes medication. It integrates gamification and community-driven approaches into its programmes.

Dr P K Goyal, MBBS, MD & DNB General Medicine at Fortis Hospital, remarked, “According to the latest guidelines by ADA, the first line of therapy for Type 2 Diabetes is Diabetes Education and lifestyle modifications. The biggest challenge any medical practitioner faces with diabetic patients is the time required for diabetes education and customising the lifestyle modifications to create behavioural change. This is exactly where Breathe Well-being has proven to be a big boon.”

The programme demonstrates significant outcomes, with over 95% of participants showing an average reduction of 1.5% in their HbA1c (blood glucose) levels. Moreover, over 98% of participants eliminated medication and experienced an average weight loss of 5.5 kilos during the programme.

Investor Confidence and Impact

Radhika Ananth, VP of Accel, expressed, “We have been impressed by how quickly Breathe Well-being is becoming a household name for Type 2 diabetes & pre-diabetes reversal across Tier 2 and 3 cities of India. I realised the true value of what Rohan and Aditya are building at Breathe Well-being after seeing my own mother go through the programme and reduce her HbA1c levels significantly.”