Throne Science raises $10M for AI toilet camera tracking gut health

Throne Science, founded in 2023 by CEO Scott Hickle and former Whoop co-founder and CTO John Capodilupo, has raised $10 million（約16億円） in Series A funding led by Will Ventures, with participation from Emerson Collective, Workshop, LEAD VC, Salt VC, Accomplice, Moxxie Ventures, and other investors. The round brings the company's total funding to nearly $18 million（約29億円） since inception. Throne makes an AI-powered toilet camera designed to track gut health and hydration by analyzing stool and urine using computer vision. The technology employs a pipeline of a dozen different computer vision models, some of which were trained by practicing gastroenterologists, to measure various health characteristics. "We started Throne because we believe it's inevitable that people will one day measure their health from their waste," Hickle told Crunchbase News.

Earlier this month, Throne introduced a beta version of its Gut Health AI coach, a conversational AI tool that lets users ask questions about their health data and receive personalized feedback. The coach uses large language models to interview users after episodes of poor gut health, asking about factors such as stress, diet changes, and sleep patterns—much like a conversation with a dietitian or nutritionist. As users complete more journal entries over time, the AI coach aims to identify which lifestyle and dietary factors are most commonly associated with both poor and good gut health outcomes. Capodilupo, who serves as chief product officer, emphasizes the importance of longitudinal data. "The magic at WHOOP was never any single measurement — it was watching the same person, day after day, year after year," he said via email. "Gut health is even more underserved. There's essentially no dense longitudinal dataset on human GI function, which is why so much of IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) care is still guesswork."

Throne operates on three business fronts: direct-to-consumer sales, partnerships with clinicians such as functional-medicine practitioners, and collaborations with academic and pharmaceutical research organizations. The company argues that its passive system can provide researchers with more consistent, objective data than traditional patient self-reporting for digestive health studies. Throne competes with Kohler's recently introduced Dekoda toilet-mounted health tracker; Hickle cites usability, battery performance, and software as key differentiators. Looking longer term, Throne aims to develop a system capable of identifying early warning signs of colorectal cancer, bladder cancer, and kidney cancers—described by Hickle as a "smoke detector for colon cancer"—though this capability remains under development. The company's first academic abstract, demonstrating that its visual AI assesses stool form with accuracy comparable to board-certified gastroenterologists, has been accepted for presentation. Validation studies are underway with researchers at Harvard University, Stanford University, and the University of Chicago. Throne has also recruited medical advisers including gastroenterologists and colorectal-cancer experts Dr. Fola May and Dr. Aasma Shaukat to build credibility in both consumer technology and gastrointestinal health. The Series A capital will be used to scale consumer education, expand clinical channels, and advance core research and development.

Throne Science enters a market where passive health tracking has become mainstream. Will Ventures partner Ben Gardner notes that roughly 80% of consumers now adopt at least one gut-health targeting behavior, yet no existing medium provides continuous tracking of gut health markers—a gap Throne aims to fill. The company faces direct competition from Kohler, which recently introduced its Dekoda toilet-mounted health tracker; Throne differentiates on usability, battery performance, and software capabilities. Throne's two co-founders bring complementary expertise: CEO Scott Hickle brings product management experience, while John Capodilupo, the former Whoop co-founder and CTO, brings both technical credibility and personal motivation—he has ulcerative colitis. Capodilupo's emphasis on longitudinal data reflects lessons from Whoop, where tracking the same person over time created a product that felt personalized and advanced the underlying science. Throne is pursuing a multi-channel go-to-market strategy: direct-to-consumer sales, partnerships with functional-medicine practitioners, and academic/pharmaceutical research collaborations that could provide researchers with objective, consistent data replacing patient self-reporting.

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