Stress isn’t simply dangerous for you — it’s additionally dangerous on your employer. Factoring in absenteeism, diminished productiveness, turnover, medical prices, and accidents, the non-profit American Institute of Stress estimates that office stress prices U.S. companies over $300 billion yearly.
One method to measure stress is by monitoring cortisol ranges. Even influencers know this, with “cortisol face” turning into a trending TikTok matter. However to strategy issues scientifically, the hormone must be measured all through the day, as a result of it’s variation that issues essentially the most.
“By the tip of the day, we must always have the bottom ranges,” says Nutrix CEO Maria Hahn. Her firm’s newly unveiled {hardware}, CortiSense, which measures cortisol in saliva, lately gained the CES Innovation Award 2025 within the Digital Well being class.
Offering sufferers with a tool as an alternative of getting them go to a clinic isn’t simply extra handy; it additionally permits for monitoring cortisol ranges proper after waking up, Hahn instructed TechCrunch.
Developed with the help of the College of Utilized Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, CortiSense integrates with Nutrix’s digital well being platform, gSense, which features a digital well being platform, steady glucose monitoring, AI-powered dietary administration, and telemedicine.
This additionally connects with Nutrix’s preliminary focus: diabetes. Whereas it pivoted its {hardware} roadmap in direction of CortiSense, the corporate’s eye continues to be on continual ailments. “Cortisol is a hormone that controls many different hormones, so it performs an essential position in psychological well being, but additionally metabolic well being,” the Switzerland-based entrepreneur stated.
This imaginative and prescient helped Nutrix achieve help from Swiss innovation company, Innosuisse, in addition to personal funding. The startup raised $4 million thus far, together with a beforehand unannounced $2.5 million seed spherical co-led by Polish affect fund Simpact and Japan deep tech fund OIST-Lifetime Ventures. Mayo Clinic additionally got here on-board, after assembly the crew at CES 2024.
The startup is in search of to boost a big Collection A spherical to fund its growth, however its seed spherical has already kicked off the U.S. launch of CortiSense. With help from the Mayo Clinic, it’s planning to open places of work in Silicon Valley.
Nutrix isn’t new to market growth; its gSense platform is built-in with the general public insurance coverage system in Chile, a rustic the place it acquired help from public program, Begin-Up Chile. In 2024, the Swiss well being tech startup additionally launched operations in Mexico and Peru.
What’s new for Nutrix, nevertheless, is the pushback over a mannequin that targets firms, moderately than shoppers. Whereas much less frequent within the U.S., in international locations equivalent to Chile, Mexico, and Peru, well being screenings are a part of an employers’ obligation to attempt for worker wellness, with an understanding that non-public well being information stays personal.
With the U.S. now on the high of Nutrix’s CortiSense roadmap, Hahn must get used to clarifying “the corporate will solely get the aggregated information.” And whereas a utilitarian pitch across the financial prices of job stress could seem distasteful to some, it could additionally function a reminder to employers that psychological well being is, certainly, well being.
Cortisol is, “additionally extraordinarily essential in ladies’s well being, particularly within the perimenopause and menopause, but it surely’s additionally an area that was very deserted from the analysis and research standpoint,” Hahn stated. She now plans to make use of a few of Nutrix’s funding to conduct additional investigations into these ties. “For me as a lady, that’s additionally essential,” she stated.
