Dr. Mark Hyman’s Function Raises $53 Million Series A With Participation From Matt Damon, Zac Efron and More

Dr. Mark Hyman’s diagnostic health platform Function has raised a $53 million series A with participation from major celebrities like Matt Damon, Kevin Hart and Zac Efron.

The company, which launched in beta in 2023, offers in-depth diagnostic testing for $499 a year. According to the team, since launch, Function has acquired about 50,000 customers and has a wait list of more than 200,000 people. Additionally, it is the fastest growing health platform in America, according to the company.

The series A was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Bio + Health with participation from the a16z Cultural Leadership Fund. Participants also include Wisdom.vc, Draft Ventures; K5 Ventures, G9 Partners; 53 Stations; chief executive officer of Endeavor Ari Emanuel; Kevin Hart; Joel Embiid’s Embiid Ventures; Jay Shetty; Blake Griffin; Jimmy Rollins; Colin Kaepernick; Dr. Casey Means; Pedro Pascal; Seed cofounder Ara Katz; Equinox chairman Harvey Spevak; former Oura CEO Harpreet Singh Rai and others.

By offering 100-plus lab tests typically not offered during a regular doctor’s visit, Function’s goal is to create a more in-depth and personalized approach to health care.

“We’re building something that’s never been built before, which is a portal for people to access their own health data, to own their own health, to be the CEO of their own health, to learn how to live 100 healthy years with support of a health copilot,” Hyman said. “Right now medicine is so fragmented, so decentralized, so disorganized and so chaotic.”

According to Hyman, there has been a significant shift in what people are seeking from their health care. He refers to it as the four Ps, a concept created by Leroy Hood, the president and cofounder of the Institute for Systems Biology.

“It’s preventive. It’s predictive. It’s personalized, and it’s participatory,” Hyman said.

“Function is how health care is supposed to be. Health is not created in a doctor’s office. It is made in your daily life. Joining Function is about knowing what’s actually happening inside your body and what to do in service of lifelong health,” said Function cofounder and CEO Jonathan Swerdlin in a statement. “You can also feel safe knowing Function will help alert you if health issues arise. Its first-of-its-kind approach of leading with 100-plus lab tests has helped many detect cancer, heart disease, hormone disorders, nutrient deficiencies, and more, giving people control of their health in a way that would not be possible otherwise. Most of what is measured both drives your health and is modifiable. You have control. The future of health is not complicated, and it’s here today.”

The goal of this raise is to better automate Function’s systems and, of course, be able to bring on more customers.

“Where we’re going is to build a much more robust portal where you can put in all your data,” Hyman said.

Scaling its technology this way will allow the brand to reach more customers.

According to Hyman, since launching Function the team has been able to identify key health trends, which will only become more in-depth with time and more customers. So far, Function has collected more than 5 million biomarkers that have led to these key insights. For example, “89 percent have abnormal lipid particles [so they] have a high risk of cardiovascular disease” and “46 percent have elevated C-reactive protein, which is a marker of inflammation,” according to Hyman.

“The key is to learn from these insights and to help educate our customers about what’s going on out there, what’s going on with their health,” he said.

With that, the team has had 180 people have a positive cancer screening.

“This is a lifesaver because when you screen people early, these are curable cancers,” Hyman said. “Not only will it save lives, but it’ll save huge costs.”

While the raise has garnered attention from major celebrities, executives from like-minded wellness brands have also gotten involved, including Katz of Seed; Singh Rai formerly of Oura; Means, cofounder of Levels, and Spevak of Equinox. According to Hyman, Function is a movement people want to get behind, especially those also in the wellness space.

“Everybody’s really into it,” he said. “It’s sort of the iPod moment, I call it. Nobody knew it existed and no one knew anything about an iPod and once it was invented, everybody wanted one.…They didn’t know what they were missing, so it’s kind of like that. Everybody wants to get behind it and support it.”

As far as what’s to come within a year, Hyman has lofty goals.

“We should be able to have hundreds of thousands of members by then,” he said. “We should be able to be far down the road on our product development to provide much more rich, personalized recommendations and guidance on insights.”