How Food-as-Medicine Is Becoming Investable Beyond the Hype

Thia Ventures’ Mirasbek Kuterbekov on consumer agency, measurable outcomes, and moats that last in food-as-medicine.

Hey folks!

Thanks for being here. For Issue #124 of Better Bioeconomy, I sat down with Mirasbek Kuterbekov, Principal at Thia Ventures, to talk about investing in the food-as-medicine space. Thia is an early-stage VC fund at the intersection of food, biotech, and health. The fund backs ingredients, enabling platforms, and clinical validation infrastructure rather than brand-only plays.

Mirasbek is a materiobiologist turned investor. He has shipped tissue-engineering work at Hoxton Farms, run product and process R&D at Dow, and published on cell-culture systems earlier in his career.

In this conversation, we cover why the last few years made food-as-medicine more attractive to invest in, what evidence earns a seed-stage check, where real moats live, the founder traits he backs, two pitfalls that still wreck startup pitches, and why “natural GLP-1s” are overhyped while maternal nutrition is underrated.

Let’s jump in!

---

Consumer agency is the unlock

Food and health have never been strangers. The missing piece has been proof you can use. For years, nutrition claims lived in marketing while the hard evidence sat in journals. Clinical readouts were slow. Manufacturing was expensive. Supply chains for novel ingredients were brittle. Too much good intent died in the gap between promise and purchase. But recent advances now let people feel and measure the effects at the consumer scale. The landscape has shifted from promises to readouts.

For Thia, the mandate was already in place. Over‑the‑counter CGMs (continuous glucose monitors) widened access. GLP‑1s gained broader indications and mainstream acceptance. Wearables reached scale with real feedback loops and raised the bar for products to show effect, not just slogans.

GLP‑1s made the shift tangible. As Mirasbek put it, the bigger trend is that they “give back people the agency.” Users report less “food noise” and find it easier to say no to dessert, which carries over into diet quality and other daily choices. The clinical story matters too. Weekly semaglutide cut major adverse cardiovascular events by about 20% in people with overweight or obesity but without diabetes, and US regulators now recognise cardiovascular benefit.

Wearables and consumer CGMs close the loop. As he noted, CGMs “can now be bought over the counter,” giving people “actionable insight into how their body responds to the consumption of glucose.” Dinner turns into next‑morning data you can act on: sleep score, time in range, resting heart rate. When a product helps, the numbers move soon enough for people to notice.

Agency compounds. Oura, a Finnish health technology company known for its Oura Ring that tracks sleep and physical activity, has member data showing that alcohol depresses heart‑rate variability and sleep quality, so users drink less once they see the impact. Fewer late drinks, better sleep, saner snacking, more consistent training. People feel it, see it in the numbers, and change.

For Mirasbek, this convergence of behavioural change and measurable outcomes shows why the space has matured. It signals a shift from potential to predictable value creation and marks a structural change. This feedback-driven behaviour makes the sector both more reliable and more scalable for investors seeking growth.

Evidence is the only antidote to hype

Food-as-medicine has become a buzzword lately, so how does an early-stage investor separate hype from real health outcomes when evaluating startups in this category? “Robust data in humans” is how Mirasbek draws the line between claims and credibility.

In a category drowning in wellness copy, he comes back to two sources of truth. First, draw on the strongest diet literature where it exists. Scientists broadly know which dietary patterns reduce risk; for example, the Mediterranean diet has demonstrated cardiovascular benefits in large, multicentre trials. The commercial challenge there isn’t to reinvent nutrition science, it’s to package adherence as convenience.

Second, fund genuinely new biology. Thia’s bar for preclinical novelty is animal studies. “You cannot just use in vitro models. You need to have tested on animals. At least some proof of efficacy in animal models makes the risk palatable.” If a startup can articulate a plausible mechanism, show efficacy beyond in vitro, and connect that story to a plan for human readouts, the risk becomes legible at the seed stage.

That early-stage discipline is also visible in Thia’s portfolio: the fund backs tools and platforms that professionalise food-health evidence, including People Science, which runs decentralised, cost-efficient human studies for nutrition and consumer health. For a sector that often outsources proof to marketing, a plug-in clinical engine is a force multiplier.

What are the moats in food-health?

Credits: David

It is one thing to offer a healthy meal or a supplement. It is another to have a durable, long-term competitive advantage. What turns a functional product into a defensible platform?

Founders often start with patents. Patents matter when the product rests on novel chemistry or a newly characterised metabolite, and Thia will back that. “You can have moats around novel ingredients and metabolites. You can patent those and create an enduring moat. But another one that often gets overlooked is branding, not flashy marketing, but consumer trust,” Mirasbek said. The quiet moats are often the most durable. Consistent, cost‑effective efficacy across lots wins over time.

Trust sits at the centre. It is built by dose fidelity and label accuracy across batches. Mirasbek cited a study that found 22 of 25 melatonin gummies deviated from label claims, ranging from 100% less to 350% more melatonin.

Exclusive supply is another advantage. Even in commodity‑heavy categories, specific functional ingredients can be chokepoints. “Access to specific ingredients and a resilient supply chain can be a moat. For example, protein-packed bar brand David bought its supplier to secure a key fat ingredient.” Exclusive or priority access to a critical input, whether a bioactive or a stabiliser, can lock competitors out of equivalent performance for years.

Work with obsessive, evidence-led, and ethical founders

In seed-stage investing, the team is everything. In a previous interview, Mirasbek shared how “obsessiveness” about the problem and the niche is the top trait he looks for in a founder. Mirasbek looks for a particular kind of obsessiveness: the founder who is never done reframing the problem, never done testing the next version, never done asking whether the current approach is still the best one.

He pairs that mindset with two non-negotiables: evidence and ethics. The first keeps the company’s narrative honest as new data arrives. The second sets the culture. Transparent, rigorous, and safe to speak up. A simple gut‑check he uses while diligencing: would you want to work for these people? If the answer is no, something in the culture probably will not scale, and the startup will run into operational issues in the future.

Two avoidable pitfalls that wreck startup pitches

The first is regulatory blind spot. Food, supplement, device, and drug are not vibes. They are legal categories that set timelines, capital needs, and label language. “A specific disease claim changes the category. It comes with different costs and a different fundraising strategy,” he said.

Cross that line and you are no longer building food as health. You have become a biotech or device play with a very different road map and investor set. Get the claim taxonomy right early. For example: “supports healthy blood sugar” is a structure or function claim; “prevents type 2 diabetes” is a disease claim.

The second is overreliance on borrowed science. Citing broad nutrition papers is not a moat. “It is not wrong, but it does not distinguish you. Having a specific ingredient like fibre does not give you a moat unless it is unique or validated through your own trials.” If your effect depends on a particular isomer, dose, or matrix, show it. Run your own protocol or use a credible platform to generate human readouts tied to your product.

Natural GLP‑1 are overhyped, and maternal nutrition is underrated

“Overhyped? Natural GLP‑1s. They get under my skin. There is some science there, but the idea that food can compete with medicines from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly is not true,” Mirasbek shared.

Biology explains why. Endogenous GLP‑1 is produced in small amounts and is rapidly degraded by the enzyme DPP‑4. Its half‑life is one to two minutes. Long‑acting analogs are engineered for albumin binding or DPP‑4 resistance and reach half‑lives measured in days. The credible opportunity sits beside the drug. Build foods and supplements that reduce side effects, improve tolerability, and help people stay on therapy.

What’s underrated? Maternal nutrition. Growing a human creates different nutritional demands, yet research and product support remain limited. The brief is clear: keep taste and convenience high, and sugar low. Make it easy for expecting mothers to eat in ways that help them now and give their children a better start.

Mirasbek cited evidence that points in the same direction. Early‑life sugar exposure and maternal metabolic state matter for long‑term cardiometabolic risk. Recent analyses of UK cohorts exposed to post‑war sugar rationing found lower adult cardiovascular events among those who experienced low‑sugar environments in utero and infancy.

A decade of work in infant‑focused functional ingredients strengthens the case. From 2′‑fucosyllactose to broader HMO mixes with plausible immune and gut benefits, the science is moving from safety toward outcomes that matter to parents and paediatricians.

If you want a food‑health domain with high evidence standards and clear long‑term value, Mirasbek believes maternal and infant nutrition is a compelling place to build.

A small ask from Mirasbek

Are you a founder or investor interested in food as health? Feel free to reach out to Mirasbek at mirasbek@thia.ventures.

Takeaways from my conversation

1. Agency and feedback loops drive investability: GLP-1s quiet “food noise” while over-the-counter CGMs and wearables turn meals into next-morning readouts. Together, they widen the user base and raise the bar for products to show effect. It is no longer just about health potential. Measurable behaviour change is now something investors can underwrite.

2. The bar for seed-stage is human-oriented evidence, animal before people: Two valid paths earn a check. Founders can build on large, public diet evidence where it already exists, or bring new biology with a plausible mechanism and animal efficacy on the way to human readouts. In vitro work alone typically does not make the risk legible at the seed stage.

3. Moats come from trust and supply, not just technology: Consumer trust compounds through label accuracy and consistent dose delivery. Over time, that reliability becomes brand equity. Controlling a key ingredient or securing a resilient supply chain is another practical moat in categories that often look like commodities from the outside.

4. Regulatory map before product map: Food, supplement, device, and drug are legal categories that define timelines, capital needs, and label language. A single disease claim can move a company into a different category with higher costs and different investors. Understand the claim taxonomy early.

---

If you found value in this newsletter, consider sharing it with a friend who might benefit from it! Or, if someone forwarded this to you, consider subscribing.