Metyos: A connected wearable biosensor to help weight loss

A serial entrepreneur's journey

In 2011, Alexandre co-founded Wandercraft, a medtech and deeptech startup that creates lower limb exoskeletons to help people in wheelchairs walk. 10 years later, still as passionate about entrepreneurship, he launched the startup Metyos with his partner Olga Chashchina.
The two partners started working on the project in October 2020 to create the company in March 2021. After a first fundraising in Love money, they will soon launch their second fundraising in October in Seed money, in order to be able to continue the development of the technology and launch the first clinical trial.
Thanks to their different backgrounds, Alexandre and Olga complement each other. Alexandre, the CEO, was a Polytechnique student from the class of 2008 and then specialized in mechanics and aeronautics thanks to his application year at Supaero. Olga, the CTO, is a Polytechnic student from the class of 2009, with a specialization in physics and a PhD in biomedical engineering from the Ecole Polytechnique, which she completed at the LadHyX laboratory in 2020.

A real problem to address

Today, more than two billion people in the world are overweight or obese, which causes great physical, social and psychological suffering. In the long term, obesity leads to co-morbidities: it is linked, among others, to diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, and this constitutes a real public health problem.
The problem is that today there is no good solution for monitoring changes in body fat storage. Therefore, people cannot see the result of their actions during the weight loss process. Alexandre having faced weight gain himself and thus this process, he realized the difficulty of not receiving any feedback to understand his metabolism and the impact of his actions on his body.
To solve this problem, Metyos develops a biosensor to track the dynamic regulation of body fat and understand the complexity of metabolism. This biosensor (in the form of a patch) measures molecules in the skin and this data is then processed by algorithms to reconstruct energy metabolism and allow people to see the impact of what they do in terms of nutrition and physical activity on their body fat storage.
A second part which consists of a mobile application that acts as a nutritionist and virtual coach, will provide personalized advice on nutrition, fitness and stress management. It will initiate a conversation with the person to allow them to understand what will work for them and help them regain a sustainable balance.

The integration of X-Tech, a strategic asset

The startup needed to be able to develop and prototype their product and therefore needed a space where they could do chemical experimentation. After negotiating with LadHyX and signing an agreement with the laboratory for the provision of premises and equipment, Metyos decided to set up in the polytechnic environment by integrating X-Tech, located nearby. Alexandre describes this choice as quite natural to have offices at X-Tech, the incubator for advanced technological companies.