Kilo Health’s Bold Transformation: From DTC Giant to High-Velocity Venture Studio

In an era where consumer health is rapidly evolving toward personalized nutrition, quantified wellness, and longevity solutions, one of Europe’s most dynamic health tech companies is making a dramatic pivot that could reshape the industry landscape.

The Kilo Evolution: More Than Just a Name Change

Founded in 2013, Kilo Health—now simply rebranded as Kilo—has undergone a remarkable transformation. Once the second-fastest-growing company in Europe in 2022, the Lithuanian powerhouse has evolved from a direct-to-consumer health brand builder into what CEO Žygimantas Surintas calls a “high-velocity venture studio.”

This isn’t merely cosmetic rebranding. After building health brands used by over 10 million people worldwide, Kilo is fundamentally repositioning itself as a co-founder and early-stage investor across health, longevity, beauty, and travel sectors.

Numbers That Demand Attention

The company’s financial performance underscores its market strength: in 2024, Kilo posted consolidated revenue of €234 million and EBITDA of €11 million. Its portfolio spans established brands including Moérie, Pulsetto, Bioma, Her Bodhi, ColonBroom, and RatePunk, alongside newer ventures Agava, Iteractive, and Go Health—with products now used by more than 10 million people across the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain, Italy, and beyond.

The “High-Velocity” Philosophy Explained

When I sat down with CEO Žygimantas Surintas, he articulated the strategic rationale behind the transformation with refreshing clarity.

“It was really about clarifying who we are,” Surintas explained. “For a long time, people described Kilo Health in different ways—studio, ventures, startup studio—and we wanted one clear answer.”

The company conducted a comprehensive internal exercise to map exactly where it acts as an investor, managing partner, co-founder, financial partner, or operational leader. This crystallization led to their current identity as a high-velocity venture studio—organizations that prioritize speed and rapid development cycles.

“Our key advantage is speed—we have a strong foundation to launch businesses quickly—and extensive knowledge from years in this space,” Surintas emphasized.

Kiloverse: The Secret Sauce

The infrastructure supporting this venture strategy is formalized through Kiloverse, Kilo’s internal ecosystem that provides founders with access to marketing expertise, technology tools, global partnerships, and specialists in R&D, nutrition, and research.

This isn’t just about capital deployment. Kilo works with builders primarily in health and wellness, supporting them from MVP stage through scale. Investment tickets range from €50,000 to €1 million, with follow-on funding of up to €10 million. To date, Kilo has invested over €10 million in external startups and nearly twice that in its own R&D and product development.

Market Specificity Over Broad Appeal

Kilo operates across health, wellness, beauty, and travel—segments that Surintas argues are distinct yet interconnected. “They target the mid-market and often serve more mature customers,” he noted. “That means we have data and understanding around what these people want—their needs, interests, and problems we can solve. So we’re not going broad.”

This market specificity is strategic. “If we launch a beauty product, we’re very specific about the market—and it often overlaps with what we know from supplements. Same with travel. We exchange a lot of data internally and we’re clear on where we’re going.”

The Right Fit Over the Obvious Winner

From a venture perspective, Kilo isn’t chasing segment leaders or obvious market winners. “We’re not rich enough to invest in the obvious, loved-by-everyone winners,” Surintas admits candidly.

Instead, the company focuses on ideas that fit their operational model and, crucially, where Kilo can provide value beyond capital. “We’re not private equity. This is our own equity—our own money—so we want to know how we’ll help the business grow.”

If capital is the only requirement, Kilo isn’t the right partner. “There are people with cheaper money. Our money is expensive—so we need the right fit and real synergies.”

Defensibility in a Copycat World

Surintas is refreshingly pragmatic about defensibility in Kilo’s core markets. In the supplement and consumer health space, what launches today gets copied tomorrow—and he accepts that as inevitable market reality.

“Copy-paste doesn’t win. A one-to-one copy never works because business takes soul, heart, and effort,” he argues. The winners, in his view, are those who execute with authenticity and understanding of their market.

Europe’s Potential, America’s Priority

While Kilo sees Europe as its biggest potential market in the coming years, Surintas admits to a strategic priority: “We still have a rule: when we start something from scratch, we start in the United States first. It’s one country—one market. Europe is one system, but in practice it’s fragmented. You lose speed.”

Yet he acknowledges the opportunity: “But if you’re afraid of wolves, don’t go into the forest.”

Balancing Speed, Science, and Data

When asked how Kilo balances scientific rigor and regulatory compliance with the pace of growth he describes, Surintas identifies this as actually one of the company’s key strengths.

“We have nutritionists, a legal team, and compliance specialists working on this every day,” he explains. “If someone comes with an idea tomorrow, we can quickly say: this path works, that path doesn’t.”

While Kilo operates primarily in supplements and consumer health, the company doesn’t manufacture its own products. Instead, it works with established partners—primarily in the United States—allowing it to develop scientifically grounded products while moving quickly.

“We know who we work with, how to create unique formulas and blends, and how to build something scalable and compliant,” Surintas says. “That know-how saves time—and that’s where speed comes from.”

Data is central to how the company evaluates both products and new opportunities. After more than a decade of building direct-to-consumer health businesses, Kilo has accumulated extensive internal datasets about consumer behavior and product performance.

AI: Cautious Optimism Over Hype

Looking ahead, Kilo plans to invest up to €20 million in AI development over the next three years, with an ambitious target of $1 billion in consolidated annual revenue. With the rise of quantified health, machine learning and AI are becoming increasingly prominent in wellness products.

However, Surintas says Kilo is deliberately cautious about how quickly it adopts new technologies. “We saw one company in our segment automate media buying with machine learning and let go of more than half their team—and sales dropped 40 percent. That’s a hard lesson.”

While he acknowledges the potential of AI, Surintas believes it should be introduced gradually rather than treated as a silver bullet. “As a leader, of course, I want AI to do everything today,” he says. “But the right approach is consistency and gradual adoption.”

Longevity: The Next Frontier

In terms of what’s next in the health and wellness space, Surintas contends that diet will be a big shift: “Trends change—keto and fasting had their moment, and keto is declining year over year. People try something, then they look for the next thing. Even GLP-1 requires specific diets to reduce side effects—so it’s all connected.”

He also sees growing demand emerging around mental health and longevity, arguing that the longevity market in particular has reached a turning point after several years of experimentation. “People are educated enough now that we can talk about mass products—what works and what’s proven versus what’s just noise,” says Surintas.

“That’s a good moment for us. This year we’re planning to introduce four or even five longevity products.”

Kilo prefers to invest once there is early traction rather than at the pure idea stage. “We invest when there’s real initial data and strong early development,” he explains. “The longevity point is more than the market foundations are now in place—so it’s the right moment to build and launch.”

Bootstrapped to €500M: The Biggest Win and Toughest Lesson

Surintas sees Kilo’s independence as its greatest achievement. “The biggest success is that the company got here without external funding. We expect to close 2025 at around €500 million in revenue—without external investment.”

The business, he notes, was originally built by its founders from a small office and scaled organically. “Times were different then, but it’s still a major achievement. And I should stress—I joined two years ago. Others built this foundation.”

But the biggest failure is also connected to success: the company grew too fast. Surintas explains, “When turbulence came, it was difficult to control and adjust the business quickly. It took time—but it also made the company stronger. Now we’re more consistent: doing less, but with better quality.”

The Grinder Mentality

For founders considering the venture side, his advice is direct: take the help, and don’t try to protect all the equity early. “You can have 100 percent of something very small, or less than 100 percent of something very big. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas—we have plenty of ideas.”

“For us, it’s not your idea we need. It’s you. We want strong partners we can grind with. Read this word: grinding. We don’t look for hustlers. We look for grinders.”

Hustling, he contends, doesn’t work anymore—especially post-COVID. “It’s tough, it takes time, and you’ll spend a lot of life in the office. It’s doing the work—heads down. And no AI or machine learning will change that.”

The Road Ahead

Kilo’s ambitions for the next phase are both bold and pragmatic. The company aims to reach €1 billion in revenue within the next few years while maintaining strong high-digit profitability. At the same time, it plans to expand into new markets and verticals—particularly travel and longevity.

“We want consistency—not chasing the latest FOMO. We don’t have a goal to be a unicorn or whatever the new term is. We could have chased that. Our goal is a stable, strong business.”

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