The deal brings lab testing and supplement verification under one roof as consumers demand more proof, not promises.
You can walk into any pharmacy or open any wellness app and it is hard to miss that there is a supplement for everything. Better sleep. Healthier aging. Sharper focus. Less stress. More energy.
Americans have embraced supplements as part of daily life, yet the industry still runs on a surprising amount of guesswork. Most people do not actually know whether the pills in their cabinet are helping, doing nothing or, in some cases, not even containing what the label promises.
That uncertainty is what Function is now stepping into. The health platform announced this week that it has acquired SuppCo, a company focused on helping consumers understand, organize, and verify their supplement routines [1]. Wellness is slowly moving away from blind optimization and toward measurable accountability.
Function, which built its business around accessible biomarker testing, believes supplements should not exist in a separate universe from the rest of a person’s health data. The idea is simple enough to resonate with almost anyone: if you are taking something every day in the name of health, shouldn’t you know whether it is actually working?
Function started by making extensive lab testing more accessible to consumers, offering insight into markers tied to hormones, inflammation, nutrient levels, heart health and more. More recently, the company expanded into MRI and CT imaging, positioning itself as part of a growing movement toward preventive and longevity-focused healthcare.
However, there has always been a missing piece. Health tracking platforms can tell people what is happening inside their bodies, but they often stop short of explaining why certain numbers are changing. Supplements, meanwhile, have exploded into a trillion-dollar culture of powders, capsules, influencer recommendations and wellness “stacks” that many consumers build with little guidance beyond TikTok narratives or podcast ads.
SuppCo was designed to make that landscape less chaotic. Its app allows users to organize supplement routines while evaluating products through its TrustScore system, which looks at factors like ingredient transparency, manufacturing quality and third-party testing. The company says it has rated more than 35,000 products and analyzed over 500,000 supplement routines.
For consumers overwhelmed by endless wellness choices, the concept feels like having a nutrition label translator for the supplement aisle.
Importantly, SuppCo does not sell supplements directly. Much of the wellness industry profits from pushing products, which can blur the line between guidance and marketing. SuppCo’s pitch is that it operates more like an independent reviewer than a storefront. That independence was part of the appeal for Function.
The acquisition also arrives at a moment when trust in supplements is becoming harder to take for granted. Earlier this year, SuppCo launched TESTED by SuppCo, an independent certification initiative that anonymously buys supplements off shelves and checks whether the active ingredients match what labels claim. According to the company, earlier testing efforts found that roughly half of top-selling supplements failed basic label accuracy standards.
For an industry tied so closely to longevity and preventive health, that finding lands awkwardly. Consumers are spending billions of dollars each year trying to invest in their future health, but many are doing so without reliable feedback loops. It is a little like adjusting the thermostat in a house without knowing whether the temperature gauge works.
The gap between intention and evidence has become one of the defining tensions inside modern wellness culture.
“Supplements are powerful when used correctly. The problem is that many people are taking the wrong ones, or taking the wrong dose, from sources they have no reason to trust. For decades, the public has lacked the tools to know the difference,” said Steve Martocci, co-founder and CEO of SuppCo.
Martocci said SuppCo was built to help users refine supplement routines over time as goals evolve and science changes, a notable shift away from the industry’s usual one-size-fits-all mentality.
The broader significance of the deal may be what it says about where longevity itself is heading. For years, longevity culture has been dominated by extreme routines, expensive interventions and highly optimized lifestyles marketed as shortcuts to better aging. But increasingly, consumers are becoming skeptical of wellness claims that sound futuristic but lack meaningful evidence.
Function appears to be betting that the next phase of longevity will be more integrated into everyday healthcare.
“You are what you put in your body,” said Jonathan Swerdlin, CEO and co-founder of Function. “Food, prescriptions, and supplements are inputs that shape your biology. SuppCo cuts through the noise of supplement marketing by organizing your supplement routine using grounded scientific rigor.”
The company says the acquisition is part of its larger effort to build what it describes as an “AI health operating system” spanning labs, imaging, clinician guidance and, now, supplement intelligence.
Image courtesy of Function