Dear All,
It is with a very heavy heart that we need to inform you that Holistiq has discontinued its operations on Wednesday, June 3rd at 6pm.
This is an extremely painful moment for us. Over the past 3 years, we have given everything to build Holistiq: a more personalized and more root-cause-oriented healthcare model for people dealing with gut health issues, women’s health and hormonal challenges, metabolic concerns, weight management and chronic symptoms that are often not fully addressed in the conventional system.
Together with our doctors, naturopaths, nutritionists and TCM therapists, we have supported thousands of patients across Switzerland. Our mission was to help people get to the root cause of their symptoms, provide functional medicine diagnostics, and offer appropriate treatments.
Unfortunately, recent changes in complementary insurance coverage for online nutrition, naturopathy and therapist-led care have made our model extremely difficult to operate. While telemedical doctor consultations and many medically indicated lab tests remain covered through basic insurance, a central part of our work — naturopaths and nutrition expert is not supported by complementary insurance, because it is online.
At the same time, we faced the lack of venture capital funding required to scale functional medicine further – both technologically and geographically. We tried everything we could: a strong team, a solid brand, good funding, major marketing campaigns, improved care pathways, new pricing models and a deep focus on helping patients identify the root causes of their health challenges. We had outstanding growth, very strong unit economics and became profitable in March this year. But under these insurance conditions and the lack of external funding, the model is no longer financially sustainable.
If you’re a client, you have received guidance to continue your journey beyond Holistiq per email.
This situation raises an important public question: how can a country that claims to promote health, prevention and digital medicine make it so difficult for an innovative digital care model to survive?
We must face a hard truth: many people are willing to spend on almost everything — but not consistently on their health, even when chronic symptoms are already affecting their daily life, unless insurance supports it.
At the same time, insurers are becoming less willing to support care models that sit outside conventional medicine. This leaves innovative approaches like Holistiq trapped between real patient needs and a system that is not ready to fund them.
Holistiq was one of Europe’s most ambitious attempts to scale functional medicine to the masses. We were addressing real pain points — gut health, hormones, weight, chronic symptoms — not abstract prevention or generic longevity. Yet even this was not enough to build a sustainable self-pay model in a country with high purchasing power.
That is the painful reality we have to accept.
We are deeply sorry for this outcome.
Thank you for trusting us, for believing in this mission, and for allowing us to be part of your health journey. It has been an honour to support you.
With gratitude,
Holistiq Founders
Eric, Nadja, Jamil & Julian
