Function Health, a preventive health and longevity startup, acquired Ezra to integrate Function’s lab testing capabilities with the company’s artificial-intelligence-powered full-body scans, combining two emerging health trends into one company.
The companies did not disclose financial details of the deal.
Function Health offers a membership-based platform that gives consumers access to more than 160 lab tests at a cost of $499 per year, or about $42 per month. The biomarker lab testing service includes heart, hormones, thyroid, nutrients, cancer signals, immunity, aging factors and autoimmunity, among other assessments.
The company claims its testing service comprises six times more lab testing than most primary care providers. Since launching in beta in mid-2023, Function claims it has grown its membership to 100,000 people, with nearly 500,000 people joining the waitlist.
Function’s lab testing platform is available at all 2,200 Quest Diagnostics locations nationwide.
Ezra debuted in 2018 as a healthcare AI company that offers full-body magnetic resonance imaging scans as a new approach to preventive health. The scans are designed to screen for cancer as well as more than 500 other conditions in up to 13 organs in the body, according to the company.
As a personal health platform, Function Health's vision from the start was to offer a 360-degree perspective of an individual’s health, said Jonathan Swerdlin, co-founder and CEO of Function Health, in an interview with Fierce Healthcare.
“It's really important that somebody fully understand what's happening in their body continuously throughout their lifetime so they can be ahead of any issues as well as make sure that they feel their best doing things in their life that's in service of their health,” he said.
“From day one, we had a vision to include imaging and scans," said Swerdlin, who is a serial entrepreneur and investor. He's the co-founder of venture firm Wisdom VC, founder of video streaming startup Portal and was a was chairman of THINX.
Ezra is now a subsidiary of Function, with founder and CEO Emi Gal continuing to lead the business.
By adding Ezra’s AI-powered imaging, Function can provide the first all-in-one platform for personal health, Swerdlin said. The combination of the two companies create the "new standard of care" with a data set that will allow AI to become predictive—potentially identifying health issues before they occur, executives said.
Gal said the two startup founders started talking last year about a commercial partnership. “The more we talked about it, the more we realized how much it would make sense to have this as a combined company,” he told Fierce Healthcare.
Gal believes Ezra is revolutionizing early cancer detection, and it claims it has helped 6% of its members identify potential cancer early. Gal said he felt personally motivated to launch Ezra as his mother passed away from metastatic cancer because it was detected too late. Ezra’s vision is to make full-body MRI scans fast, accurate and affordable.
To that end, Function Health and Ezra are reducing the price and cutting the time required for an individual to get a full body MRI scan.
The companies are offering a full-body MRI that takes only 22 minutes, as opposed to an hour, and at a cost of $499, compared to $1,500.
Function “democratized” annual lab testing, Swerdlin said, and this new $499 full-body scan also democratizes AI-based imaging.
“This is the new way in which people take control of their health. This is the new healthcare system,” Swerdlin said.
Prior to the new offering, booking a scan through Ezra cost anywhere from $1,500 for a 30-minute scan that doesn't include the spine or lungs all the way up to a "full body ultimate" scan priced at $6,000 that the company touts as it's "most advanced longevity scan" which includes assessments for body composition, MS, dementia, brain age, aneurysms and coronary plaque.
Function Health and Ezra are both cash-pay and do not accept insurance, but individuals can use funds in a FSA/HSA plan to pay for services.
Ezra’s Flash AI, classified as a Class II medical device, enables the company to enhance MRI images acquired at faster speeds. In February, Ezra gained 510(k) clearance by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its advanced Ezra Flash AI model that enhances the quality of imaging not only for neuro MRI images but also for the abdomen and pelvis.
A few months ago, Gal said the company’s goal was to launch a 15-minute, $500 full body MRI scan in 2026, and the new FDA clearance was an important step in that direction. It seems the acquisition deal with Function will accelerate that process by making Ezra’s services accessible to members across its nationwide platform.
Before AI, annual full body scans were simply not possible at scale, according to the companies. The prohibitive cost and lengthy scan times meant they could only be done as one-off procedures for a select few. AI has fundamentally changed this equation. For half the scan time and a third of the price, scanning every year is now practical and affordable, Function Health and Ezra executives claim.
Ezra does not operate brick-and-mortar imaging facilities but partners with imaging centers and radiologists across the country.
The faster, lower-priced scans are now immediately available for every Function member at nearly 100 locations across the U.S. Swedlin said.
Function Health plans to expand to more than 1,000 locations in the coming months.
Additional scans now being offered by Function look for spinal issues affecting mobility, early-stage fatty liver disease and body composition details more precise than what DEXA scans provide, the company said.
Reducing the cost and scan time of full body MRI unlocks the ability to capture an annual imaging baseline, noted Dan Sodickson, M.D., Ph.D., chief scientific advisor of Ezra, in a statement. "This longitudinal dataset reveals subtle changes over time that catch immediate issues and can predict disease before symptoms even appear."
Ezra’s platform includes several AI solutions, including Ezra Prostate AI, which is FDA-cleared AI that assists radiologists in measuring potential lesions and create 3D model visualizations of the prostate; Ezra Reporter AI, a chatGPT-like AI that converts radiology reports into lay term translations; Ezra Hub, a custom EHR and facility integration platform designed for medical providers; Ezra Viewer, a medical imaging viewer designed for consumers; and Ezra Plexo, a DICOM viewer and editor designed for physicians.
In December, Function Health teamed up with healthcare company Grail to offer members its Galleri multi-cancer early detection test that screens for multiple cancers with a simple blood draw.
Function Health co-founder and Chief Medical Officer Mark Hyman is a doctor, author and a longtime friend of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who now serves in the Trump administration as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Bloomberg reported in February that Function Health was looking to raise $200 million, which would propel its valuation to $2 billion. Last June, the startup picked up $53 million in series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Bio + Health, backed by a slew of other investors and celebrities including Matt Damon, Kevin Hart and Casey Means, M.D.
A year ago, Ezra nabbed $21 million in funding led by Amir Dan Rubin’s Healthier Capital and FirstMark Capital and supported by a number of other investors.