Startup aims to ‘unlock prevention’ by combining images, video, voice and other health data collected by our phones.
Berlin-based digital health startup YOU(th) Health Tech today announced $4.5 million in new funding to advance its smartphone-based preventive screening platform. By analyzing face videos, voice recordings, eye photos, skin images, typing patterns and step data, the platform is claimed to assess more than 50 digital biomarkers spanning multiple organ systems in less than two minutes.
With demand for prevention on the rise, YOU(th)’s founders argue that practical barriers continue to limit its uptake. The company is built on premise is that current smartphone sensors can already be used to gather significant signals about a person’s health, and have the capacity to replace some of the health screenings typically conducted at clinics.
“Our mission is to unlock prevention for 8 billion people,” said YOU(th) CEO Filippo Nigro. “Everyone talks about prevention, yet only ~8% screen at the optimal frequency because time, cost, and friction get in the way. We remove those frictions by turning everyday phone behavior, selfies, voice, typing, into passive health screening, seamlessly connected to real healthcare.”
The YOU(th) platform leverages a wide range of machine learning models trained on various types of digital signals, including photoplethysmography (PPG) data extracted from short face videos captured by a phone camera, which enables the analysis of subtle changes in reflected light across the skin to estimate physiological measures such as heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure and oxygen saturation. The platform’s voice analysis tools evaluate short spoken samples to detect patterns linked to mental wellbeing, respiratory issues and cognitive health. Eye images are processed to infer metabolic markers, while skin photos are compared with large datasets to assess hydration, pigmentation, pores and other dermatological indicators.
Validated technology
Nigro told us that YOU(th)’s technology has been validated through a combination of peer-reviewed research, third-party certifications, and real-world deployments.
“The company integrates the best AI models from leading researchers and digital health vendors that have undergone clinical validation against gold-standard medical devices, while simultaneously developing proprietary models in-house,” he said. “Validation includes comparison against ECG, PPG, spirometry, dermatological imaging, and lab-based reference measurements, as well as testing across diverse demographics and lighting or environmental conditions.”
According to Nigro, YOU(th) also continuously validates its technology through live deployments with longevity clinics, insurers, and corporate wellness partners
“Biomarker development passes through different stages: initial research, development of the production ready systems, and validation,” he said. “Our biomarkers are developed large historical datasets of high-quality data from a range of modalities: video, voice recordings, step patterns, and even behavioral data like keyboard typing.”
Wellness scoring
Together, all these inputs feed into a wellness scoring system designed to give users a simplified overview of their cardiovascular, respiratory, metabolic, mental, cognitive and skin health. YOU(th) emphasizes its intention (at least currently) is not to diagnose illness, but to provide “insights to support healthy lifestyle choices and general well-being.” The company is currently pursuing a business-to-business-to-consumer strategy, partnering with clinics and health insurers to distribute its technology to patients and policyholders, and claims to have secured more than 20 commercial agreements so far.
“We believe digital and physical healthcare must converge,” Nigro told us. “Digital screening is the most accessible entry point, but real impact only happens when it connects to real doctors, clinics, and care pathways. At the same time, we are building a novel, AI-driven health technology, where trust, validation, and high-quality data are critical. That’s why we started with B2B2C: to earn trust through established healthcare players, generate clinically meaningful data, and learn directly from real-world medical environments.”
“The strategy was also driven by market pull,” he added. “After launching the product, clinics and health insurance companies began reaching out to us proactively to offer it to their patients and members. That inbound demand clearly signaled B2B2C as the natural scaling path, and we followed it by signing contracts.”
Once trust in the product has been established, YOU(th) says it plans to expand its offering directly to consumers.
“This second phase allows us to scale prevention to the masses, establish category leadership in smartphone-based preventive screening, and grow faster by leveraging the credibility, data, and network effects built through B2B2C,” said Nigro.
Future development
The company said the new capital will largely be directed toward expanding engineering, data science and medical research teams as it continues developing its algorithms and clinical integrations. Nigro told that a key focus will be on expanding the breadth of screening options that can be delivered via smartphones.
“Over the next phases, this includes new screening domains such as sleep, cognitive, vision, dental, kidney, gut, metabolic, and multi-risk predictive screening,” he said. “We want to build the most complete and accessible pre-screening tool in the market. This builds a truly longitudinal, multi-system view of health rather than isolated metrics.”
Other areas of development will include addition integration with physical healthcare systems, including clinical dashboards, doctor-facing tools, EHR and insurance integrations, lab and wearable connectivity, referral systems, and white-label deployments for clinics and insurers.
“The goal is to ensure that digital screenings translate into real clinical decisions, follow-ups, and care pathways,” explained Nigro, adding that the product’s “intelligence layer” will also be invested in. “This includes improved scoring and risk engines, personalized action plans, recommendations, health trend tracking, predictive insights, and conversational interfaces that help users and clinicians interpret results over time. This layer turns raw screenings into continuous prevention.”
The funding round was led by Callisto Health, with participation from Antler and other VCs, alongside several angel investors.
Christoph Klink, Partner at Antler, lauded YOU(th) for its “clear vision for the future of longevity.”
“They are building foundational infrastructure for preventive medicine that directly addresses the needs of an overstretched healthcare system,” he said. “We have every confidence in their ability to lead this new category of digital health.”
