Viv, the Irish-founded weight loss company backed by basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal and Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave, is to be wound down after two failed takeover bids for the business, its co-founder Pat Phelan has said.
The company, previously known as Limbo, has been unable to compete with the rise of popular weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro and the “multibillion dollar” marketing budgets behind them, Mr Phelan said in a statement on Monday evening.
The serial entrepreneur cofounded Viv in 2020 with personal trainer Tony Martin and Rurik Bradbury.
New York-headquartered Viv delivered coaching programmes aimed at helping people to get their health under control, using blood glucose information combined with user data.
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Mr Phelan told The Irish Times in 2023 that he had lost 36kg in nine months using Viv, reversing his pre-diabetes diagnosis.
However, he said on Monday that the business struggled to compete with the entrance to the weight loss market of the world’s “largest pharmaceutical companies”.
Viv continued to hold its own, he claimed, outperforming the drugs market, “an average of almost 9 per cent weight loss in six months, versus 6 per cent for the drugs.
“However, we did run into the huge marketing power that these multibillion dollar companies have, based on their sheer size.”
Mr Phelan said the company had held more than 50 investor meetings over the past six months to save the business.
He also said Viv “gone through two failed acquisition processes with two of the largest global companies” in the continuous glucose monitoring industry.
A suitor “walked away last week”. Mr Phelan said his family office, Phelan Labs, “cannot continue to shore up the finances of one of its investments” into which, he said, he had “invested personally” to keep it afloat.
“We are obviously upset to get here both personally and as a group,” he said.
“Failure is not a coat I like to wear. This has been a 25-year dream of Tony Martin, and we are upset for members/investors that we can’t continue the service, however, we will endeavour to keep it alive as long as possible.
“With losses mounting and no sign of a closing of an investment/acquisition, there has to be a finish point.”
He said that he hopes one of the potential acquirers of the business will buy it out of liquidation, “and bring back the project with the correct financial footing”.
In 2022, Viv raised $6 million in funding to develop the platform, with basketball star Shaquille O’Neal coming on board both as a backer and a Limbo user. Other investors include Mr Cosgrave, PCH’s Liam Casey and Voxpro co-founder Dan Kiely.
Pharmaceutical giant Abbott recently took legal action against Viv in the UK, reportedly related to trademarks over the similarity between the trading name Limbo and Abbott’s Ireland-based Lingo Sensing Technology platform.
Mr Phelan told the Business Post on Monday evening that the case had no impact on the decision to close, but it did force the company to change its name back to Viv from Limbo.
