Smartypans
Setting the Scene
There is no easy way to track nutritional intake. 🤷🏼
“How many calories are in this? Is this dish healthy? What are my macros for the day?”
Plus, when craving Grandma's signature recipe, existing solutions fall short:
Nutrition tracking apps are rigid and offer limited ingredient databases.
Meal kits sidestep cherished family recipes altogether.
This week’s company offers a comprehensive nutrition tracking solution for home cooked meals and beyond.
In a Sentence
SmartyPans provides technology that offers a data driven approach to personalized nutrition.
Technology: A cooking pan equipped with a camera and proprietary patented sensors identifies ingredients, and measures weight, temperature, and stirring motions in real time.
Data driven: AI technology computes the nutritional contents of ingredients and tracks them on the user’s personal health dashboard.
Personalized: A UGC platform powered by this technology, allows users to subscribe to the content of influential chefs or create and preserve family recipes.
Bulleted Version:
- Think of SmartyPans as a fitness tracker for your kitchen, but instead of tracking calories burned it tracks calories consumed. 🤯
The Basics
- Headquarters: Mountain View, California ⛰
- Employee Count: 6
- Investors:
Anorak Ventures and AARP
- Business model: B2C product sales, B2B subscriptions for grocery and food brands, royalties for hardware licensing
- Early traction: Patents issued, 26k user waitlist, 3k paid beta users, distribution partnerships with QVC and Wayfair, hardware licensing interest from prominent cookware brands
Due Dilligence
WHAT WE LIKE
📈 Market: The home cooking segment of the nutrition industry is skyrocketing with a recent study suggesting that 82% of meals consumed in the US are cooked at home.
With increasing health consciousness and a demand for accurate nutritional information, SmartyPans is well-positioned for growth.
🌱 Sustainable: SmartyPans uses proprietary, biodegradable PCBs and non-metal parts, avoiding plastic, aluminum, and toxic chemicals often found in existing cookware.
📹 Content creation: The platform enables creators to document and share recipes to their media channels, tapping into a content creation market approaching half-a-trillion dollars.
POTENTIAL RISKS
⏳ Time to market: SmartyPans technology requires longer R&D cycles, which can extended time to market.
💸 Changing the model: While SmartyPans recurring revenue comes from B2B users, they currently offer valuable data to retail users at no cost.
Introducing a D2C-based subscription later on could impact user retention.
🔨 Hardware: Historically, hardware-driven products face competition from cheaper, versatile software applications.
While SmartyPans’ patent creates a moat against direct competitors, other companies might leverage AI and photo-centric tech to advance nutrition tracking.
Founder Profile
Prachi Baxi, CEO: Previously oversaw Nutrition Compliance for over 200 food districts, MS in Clinical/Public Health Nutrition.
Rahul Baxi, CTO: Co-founded Grubshire.
Comps
Calorie Mama : Backed by Founders Fund, Felicis, Accel, and Western Technology Investment (via their investments in Azumio).
SnapCalorie: Backed by Accel, Eric Roza, Y Combinator, and Index Ventures.
Noom: Backed by Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, National Institutes of Health, and others.
Why Smartypans
By combining innovative nutrition tracking, AI driven insights, recipe guidance, and an eco-friendly product SmartyPans has whipped up a recipe for success. 🧑🍳