Israeli startup Lembas unveils food additive for slimming

The company has emerged from stealth and announced that it has raised $3.6 million in a pre-seed financing round.

Israeli foodtech startup Lembas has emerged from stealth and reported that it has developed GLP-1 Edge, a bioactive peptide that triggers the production of GLP-1 and other gut hormones that regulate appetite and metabolism. GLP-1 is the basis for Ozempic. The company plans offering GLP-1 Edge as a pill as well as integrating it into food as a kind of "slimming food."

The company also announced that it has raised $3.6 million in a pre-seed financing round led by FLORA Ventures, with participation from Bluestein Ventures, Fresh Fund, Longevity Venture Partners, Maia Ventures, Siddhi Capital, Mandi Ventures and SDH.

Lembas was founded in 2024 by Shay Hilel (CEO), Dr. Zohar Barbash (CTO), Prof. Maayan Gal (CSO) and Dr. Daniel Bar as a startup for the discovery of food ingredients that can have a significant health impact using AI, and the current product is its first.

GLP-1 is secreted by the body naturally, following the consumption of certain foods, such as foods high in fiber or protein. Injectable GLP-1 drugs contain much higher doses of the substance than the body secretes on its own. Lembas' goal was to find those specific food ingredients that can lead to high secretion of GLP-1.

GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, Mounjaro and others in the market under development, are given by injection of a fixed dose over a very long term. These drugs lead to an average weight loss of about 15%, which is currently the minimum threshold for competition in the weight loss injection market.

There are oral drugs that achieve lower weight loss rates, and are also considered major rivals due to their more convenient form of administration.

Lembas does not see its product as a direct competitor to injectable medications, but rather as a product suitable for those who do not wish to inject drugs or who want to stop using the medication and are concerned about gaining weight. The recommendation would be to replace one meal a day with a pill, or with food with the supplement.

It is difficult to compare the effectiveness of medications with the effectiveness of such a product, because regulation does not require efficacy testing in food products, and Lembas does not intend to conduct an efficacy trial in humans, but only a safety trial as required for food products. In animal models, the company manages to achieve about two-thirds of the weight loss obtained with "semaglutide", the active ingredient in Ozempic.

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Lembas hopes its products will be on the market in 2027, although this depends on agreements with food and supplement companies. Israeli company Epitomee, which developed a weight loss pill with a different mechanism, signed an agreement with Nestle, which subsequently canceled the agreement after a clinical trial of the product did not achieve the performance level desired by Nestle. Lembas will face similar challenges when it comes to convincing food companies that its product has a place in the rapidly developing world of GLP.

Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 22, 2025.

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