NYC food-as-medicine company Epicured acquires Chiyo
New York-based Epicured, a company focused on medically-tailored meals, has acquired Chiyo, Inc., a company dedicated to women's health nutrition. The acquisition is intended to strengthen and scale Epicured's offerings in women's healthcare, particularly in areas like fertility, maternity, and postpartum care.
- Epicured was co-founded by CEO Richard Bennett in 2016, initially focusing on meals for digestive diseases such as IBS, Crohn's, and colitis before expanding to other chronic conditions. - Chiyo was founded in 2021 by Irene Liu and Jennifer Jolorte with a focus on blending traditional Chinese medicine and modern nutritional science to support women's health stages from fertility through postpartum. - Prior to the acquisition, Chiyo had raised $3.4 million in total funding, including a $3 million seed round in March 2024 led by Bread and Butter Ventures. - This deal operates within the burgeoning "femtech" and "food as medicine" sectors; the global femtech market is projected to reach $41.14 billion by 2034, while the food as medicine market was valued at over $25 billion in 2024. - Epicured is a key partner in New York State's $7.5 billion Medicaid 1115 Waiver program, a large-scale initiative to integrate nutrition-based interventions to improve health outcomes and lower healthcare costs. - A recent state-by-state analysis published in *Health Affairs* estimated that nationwide implementation of medically tailored meals could prevent over 2.6 million hospitalizations and save approximately $23 billion in healthcare costs annually. - Unlike many meal delivery services, Epicured is vertically integrated, operating its own "healing food" production facility to maintain control over the creation and distribution of its clinical nutrition offerings. - Irene Liu, Chiyo's co-founder and CEO, has stated the company's long-term vision is to be the go-to nutrition source for women throughout all life stages, from the menstrual cycle through menopause.
