Olympic medallist and DNAfit co-founder Andrew Steele has raised £4.6 million in seed funding for HealthTech Stride.
Norwich-based Stride is described as the UK’s first diagnostics-driven preventative health membership, designed to help people understand, track and proactively improve their health data over time.
The round includes investment from Arāya Ventures, Morgan Stanley Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures, Better Ventures, Innovate UK, and an a16z Scout Fund investor, alongside a group of angel investors.
Launched in May 2024, Stride combines testing across DNA, blood and gut health with personalised insights and advanced diagnostics, helping members build a deeper understanding of their individual health data and make more informed decisions about their health and performance.
The new funding will be used to build a leading preventative health platform, curating a predictive and personalised health operating system which supports users in being proactive about their health.
They will also be launching their membership, Stride One, beyond the UK before the end of the year.
Steele brings more than a decade of experience operating at the intersection of elite performance, genetics and health. He spent 13 years competing as a 400m and 4x400m relay athlete for Team GB, winning a bronze medal at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
Following his sporting career, Steele co-founded personal genetics company DNAfit, which became part of Prenetics in 2018. He subsequently helped grow its EMEA business ahead of the company’s successful NASDAQ listing in 2022 at a valuation of more than $1bn.
Steele sees no reason why the same proactive mindset employed by elite businesses and sportspeople alike shouldn’t be adopted into mainstream health.
“Preventative health can sometimes sound boring or worthy, when actually it could be one of the most transformative opportunities of our generation,” said Steele. “If we can make better health exciting, aspirational and genuinely engaging, and use deeper analysis to give people better insights earlier in life, we have the potential to change everyday behaviours at a scale that could fundamentally reshape how long and how well we live.
“The scale of the opportunity is huge. If you could somehow eliminate cancer completely, studies suggest that would add only around three years to average lifespan. The much bigger opportunity is preventing multiple diseases in the first place, by changing everyday health behaviours earlier and at scale.
“For most of my life, I’ve been obsessed with understanding what makes people perform at their best. Elite athletes have long understood the value of testing, tracking and continually adapting. But that approach shouldn’t be reserved for people competing at the highest level.
“We’re seeing a cultural shift towards prevention, with people taking much more ownership of their health and wanting to understand what is happening inside their bodies. Stride is being built to give millions of people the tools to do exactly that, helping them move from simply being ‘normal’ to becoming their healthiest, highest-performing selves.”
Rupa Popat, founder and managing partner at Arāya Ventures said: “Stride sits at the intersection of some of the most important shifts in healthcare: prevention, personalisation and the consumerisation of health.
“We believe the opportunity to help people understand and act on their health data earlier is enormous and look forward to being on the journey with Andrew and the team.”
Stride is also expanding into premium wellness and longevity, with partnerships including Triple Bond at The Botree Hotel and LongLane, a new alcohol-free biohacking destination, where Stride testing is being used to personalise members’ experiences.
Stride has also secured Innovate UK funding for two pioneering projects: developing a new multiomic approach to biological age, and creating an AI health copilot that combines deep lab test results, wearable data, health records and other health information to deliver truly personalised insights and support.