A metabolic health company whose app turns continuous glucose monitor data into personalized feedback on how food, sleep, and exercise affect blood sugar.
Facts
- Founded
- 2019
- Co-founders
- Sam Corcos, Josh Clemente
- Headquarters
- Remote (United States)
- Product
- App built on continuous glucose monitoring
- Focus
- Metabolic health
Overview
Levels is an American metabolic health company whose software translates the raw output of a continuous glucose monitor into personalized, near real-time feedback on how food, exercise, sleep, and stress affect a person's blood sugar. Founded in 2019 by a team including the chief executive Sam Corcos and the engineer Josh Clemente, Levels helped popularize the idea that people without diabetes might use glucose data as a window into their everyday metabolism, part of the broader quantified self movement. Rather than making its own sensor, Levels built an interpretation layer on top of glucose hardware from established manufacturers, aiming to turn a stream of numbers that most people find opaque into clear guidance about their own bodies.
Founding
Levels was co-founded in 2019 by Sam Corcos, who became chief executive, and Josh Clemente, an engineer who had previously worked on life-support systems at the rocket company SpaceX and who has described wearing a glucose monitor himself as the spark for the company. The founding team also included the physician Casey Means and other technologists, and from the start the company cultivated an engaged community of early members and self-experimenters. It has operated on a subscription model and worked to make the program more affordable over time. Levels raised venture funding across several rounds, including a Series A of around 38 million dollars in 2022 with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, and as a fully remote company it has emphasized software, content, and community over physical retail.
How it works
A member wears a continuous glucose monitor, a small sensor on the arm that measures glucose in the fluid beneath the skin and transmits readings to a phone. The sensors themselves are made by hardware companies such as Abbott and Dexcom; Levels connects to them and interprets the data, extending the logic of fitness and sleep wearables to blood sugar. The Levels app overlays glucose readings with logged meals and activity, then scores how individual foods and habits affect the user's curve, highlighting which meals cause the largest spikes. The premise rests on a genuine scientific finding, that different people can have markedly different glucose responses to the same food, so individualized feedback might help someone adjust what, when, and how they eat. Over time the company broadened beyond glucose to incorporate blood testing and other metabolic markers, positioning itself as a general metabolic health program rather than a single-device app.
Reception and debate
Levels has been credited with making metabolic health tangible, turning an abstract concern into something a person can see and act on day to day, and its educational content has helped spread awareness of insulin resistance and metabolic disease. The central criticism is that the evidence for continuous glucose monitoring in healthy people remains thin. In someone without diabetes, blood sugar is tightly regulated, and the post-meal rises that the app flags are ordinary physiology rather than disease; there is limited proof that deliberately flattening them improves long-term health in people who are already metabolically well. Skeptics warn that sensor noise and the lag of interstitial readings can make normal fluctuations look alarming, and that a glucose-focused view can encourage overly restrictive eating or anxiety. Used thoughtfully, supporters argue, the tool reveals real and personal patterns; used uncritically, it can turn normal metabolism into a source of worry.