SA国际传媒

For , CEO of , fasting was a way to try to fight cancer as he underwent aggressive chemotherapy treatment for Stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Research he’d found showed that fasting could help better target malignant cells.

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Maser had just agreed to his digital fitness platform to for $17.8 million when he was diagnosed. Then he heard about a fasting app called Zero.

Serial entrepreneur had started in 2016 but was ready to move on to join . So in 2018, Maser acquired the company and rebranded it as Big Sky Health with the mission of making fasting 鈥渕ore accessible and personalized for all.鈥� (Sidenote: He’s thankfully now cancer-free.)

Specifically, the Zero app aims to provide custom, adaptive fasting plans and 鈥渆xclusive, science-backed content鈥� to help guide users wanting to improve their health.

Today, Montana-based Big Sky Health announced it has raised $8 million in Series A funding to help it advance on its goals. led the oversubscribed financing, which also included 鈥渁bove pro rata participation鈥� from existing backers and . The latest investment brings Big Sky Health鈥檚 total raised to $12.2 million, according to SA国际传媒 . The company had previously raised $4.2 million across two tranches of a seed round from True Ventures, Trinity Ventures, and individual investors including such as former NFL player , WordPress co-founder and Automatic CEO , and co-founder .

Good timing

Serendipitously, the intermittent fasting trend has taken off in recent years, only fueling demand for Zero. Since launching in 2017, Zero has recorded over 1.5 billion hours of fasting across nearly 100 million completed fasts. Interestingly, more than one-third, or 37 million, of those fasts were recorded this year alone. This translates into a 500 percent spike in active users compared to 2019, according to Maser.

鈥淲e鈥檙e adding about 20,000 new users per day,鈥� he told SA国际传媒 News. 鈥淎nd we haven鈥檛 even been doing any advertising. This has been purely organic growth. Fasting is where meditation was five years ago. And as we鈥檝e been the leading product in the space, we鈥檝e been able to take a disproportionate share of that growth.鈥�

In conjunction with its funding announcement, Big Sky Health also launched today a subscription product called Zero Plus which builds upon its free offering.

鈥淲e鈥檙e still committed to democratizing the fasting lifestyle for anyone who wants it, but our No. 1 request from users has been getting more guidance, and that鈥檚 what the premium subscription will offer,鈥� Maser said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 basically getting a custom fasting plan and the ability to adjust that plan over time based on how you鈥檙e accomplishing your goals and how you鈥檙e feeling.鈥�

Zero Plus is being offered at an 鈥渋ntroductory subscription price鈥� of $9.99 a month or $49.99 a year at launch, with a free one week trial.

Greycroft Principal said he was an avid user of Zero and saw 鈥渇irsthand鈥澛� how it 鈥減ositively affected people鈥檚 lives.鈥�

鈥淲hen Mike pitched us on his vision for the company, our team quickly became enamored with Mike鈥檚 personal journey, the incredible traction of the product, and the massive market potential of this business,鈥� he said in a statement.

The company鈥檚 chief medical officer and Zero co-founder, Dr. Peter Attia, said he had long implemented fasting in his own practice.

鈥淚’ve seen how fasting has worked for some of my patients, which is why it was so important to me to grow the reliable tools that are out there for others,鈥� he said.

Besides Zero, Big Sky Health also offers an alcohol tracker called , as well as a meditation and breathing app called . The totally distributed company (even before the pandemic) has 15 employees. It plans to do more hiring with its new funding, as well as focusing on customer acquisition.

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