How Fay is Scaling Customized Nutrition Care for Consumers While Reshaping the Business Opportunity for Dietitians

Today, we’re sharing that we’re leading the $20 million series A for Fay, the platform enabling consumers to access registered dietitians at little to no cost through insurance while empowering an overlooked, lesser-served sector of healthcare providers–registered dietitians (RDs)–to build their personal businesses on their own terms. Fay stood out as the company to partner with in the nutrition space based on their tremendous impact and scale in a relatively short period of time, demonstrating their immediate resonance with RDs and their opportunity ahead—along with their product sophistication, unique model, and the caliber of the team.

Fay comes at a time when America is clearly at a critical moment with nutrition and dietetics across culture, health, and public interest. There’s no shortage of evidence illustrating this reality:

• Obesity rates in America hover around 41%, up from 11% in 1990, and the WHO has declared obesity an epidemic that continues to worsen.
• About half of all American adults have 1 or more preventable chronic diseases, many of which are related to poor-quality eating patterns — including cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, some cancers, and poor bone health.
• Consumers are fundamentally rethinking the way they approach their health, as evidenced by the ballooning popularity of better-for-you food products, GLP-1s, wearables, and of generally embracing proactive medical care.

While we know that nutrition is the foundation of health, and that poor nutrition is a key driver of chronic diseases, the system hasn’t set up consumers to properly understand and take control over their diet. We know empirically that RDs can effectively support individuals in managing and preventing conditions through nutrition care, but there’s a general lack of consumer awareness about the role that dietitians can play, not to mention, the broader role food and weight play in our larger health. This issue is compounded by limited in-network coverage, sticker shock with out-of-pocket costs, and the overall de-prioritization of proactive efforts within the healthcare system.

Founded in 2022 by Sam Faycurry and Mark Stefanski, Fay connects patients with registered dietitians who deliver personalized nutrition and lifestyle counseling to change the way people think and feel about food—at little to no cost for consumers through in-network care. Fay has always operated by putting RDs first, offering providers the ability to accept insurance and run their business through the Fay Nutrition platform. At Forerunner, we refer to this model as a digitally-native franchise, where small business entrepreneurs can run their own business through a platform with supporting tools and resources needed for scale, all while aligned incentives ensure value accrual is greater through the platform versus off. This model honors providers’ desire to work on their own terms and practice their preferred methods of dietetics, while giving them a powerful and growing set of offerings to do so, all of which drive provider retention and end-patient outcomes.

Fay wouldn’t be possible without Sam, Mark, and the incredibly energized and effective team they’ve built. Sam’s mother and sister are both RDs, and he saw an immense opportunity to empower this under-served, but very-much-needed class of healthcare providers.

We believe this team and this model are best positioned to reshape nutrition care at a time when Americans need it most.