HealthTech Stride Secures Seed Funding to Expand Preventative Platform
Andrew Steele's HealthTech startup Stride raised £4.6 million in seed funding from investors including Morgan Stanley Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures.
HealthTech Stride raised £4.6 million in seed funding to expand its preventative health platform internationally. The round was backed by Morgan Stanley Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures, an a16z Scout Fund investor, and a group of angel investors.
Founder’s background in elite sport and health tech
Andrew Steele brings a unique blend of elite athletics and health tech entrepreneurship to his role as Stride's founder. He is an Olympic medallist, having finished fourth in the 4x400m relay at the 2008 Beijing Games after a 13-year career as a 400m athlete for Team GB.
Steele later co-founded the genetic testing company DNAfit. He held the role of chief product officer for EMEA at Prenetics until January 2023, before launching Stride in May 2024.
Funding fuels product development and wellness expansion
The new capital will accelerate two core research projects and drive expansion into premium wellness partnerships. Stride secured Innovate UK funding for these initiatives.
The first project focuses on developing a multiomic method for measuring biological age. The second involves creating an AI-powered health copilot. This system will integrate laboratory test results, wearable data, and health records to generate personalised insights.
Stride is also expanding into the premium wellness sector through collaborations. It has partnered with Triple Bond at The BoTree Hotel and with Long Lane, an alcohol-free biohacking destination and hotel near Midhurst in West Sussex. These partnerships use Stride's diagnostic testing to personalise members' experiences.
The funding will support building a predictive and personalised health platform designed to help users manage their health more proactively.
Stride’s mission and preventative health model
Stride is a Norwich-based startup described as the UK’s first diagnostics-driven preventative health membership. It combines testing across DNA, blood, and gut health with personalised insights. The DNA test examines genes such as MTHFR.
The service aims to shift focus from treating problems after they emerge to identifying risks earlier. It helps individuals understand their health data, track changes over time, and make informed decisions. Test kits are dispatched from a UK laboratory to customers worldwide, and members can arrange consultations with a dietitian.
Stride sees this model as a way to address pressures on healthcare systems like the NHS, noting the substantial financial burden of lifestyle-related diseases. Andrew Steele believes making preventative health engaging and accessible could encourage people to take greater control. "Preventative health can sometimes sound boring or worthy, when actually it could be one of the most transformative opportunities of our generation," he said.
The goal is to help people identify individual risk factors earlier, make lifestyle changes, and reduce the burden of preventable diseases.
Future rollout and validation through grants
Stride plans to launch its flagship product, the Stride One membership, internationally before the end of 2026. This membership provides an estimate of biological age based on nine blood biomarkers. The company will use the seed funding to build a leading preventative health platform and curate what it calls a predictive and personalised health operating system.
