These 9 startups are betting that your gut is healthcare's next frontier, with millions in backing from investors like Marc Benioff and Vinod Khosla

Human Longevity, a boutique wellness firm cofounded in 2014 by the genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter, offers a battery of comprehensive tests, including a full-body MRI scan, complete genome sequencing, and microbiome analysis.

The company reached unicorn status in 2016, capitalizing on the declining cost of DNA sequencing and attracting high-profile investors like Illumina, Celgene, and GE Ventures, but lost that status in 2018 on the heels of company turmoil that included the departure of Venter and the loss of three other executives.

Having raised $538.1 million, according to PitchBook, Human Longevity is still the best-funded startup in the microbiome-analysis space, though its tests include far more than stool-sample analyses.

The company is valued at $40.1 million, according to PitchBook. Customers can take its tests in a "spalike" setting in San Diego, where the company is based.

PanTheryx focuses on harnessing the power of bovine colostrum, a milky fluid found in the breasts of cows just before they give birth, to create drugs that target the microbiome.

The Boulder, Colorado-based company hopes to treat conditions including C. difficile, Crohn's, and ulcerative colitis with its drug candidates and a variety of what it calls "medical foods."

The company has raised $137.6 million from investors including Pegasus Capital and Sequel Venture Partners, according to PitchBook, and was founded in 2007.

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Kallyope is a therapeutics-focused startup that has partnered with a variety of established companies, like Novo Nordisk, to develop products directed at treating diabetes and obesity by focusing on the gut-brain axis.

Based in New York, the company has raised $131 million and is valued at $221 million, according to PitchBook. Backers include Illumina, Two Sigma Ventures, and Lux Capital. Kallyope was founded in 2014.

Like Kallyope, Vedanta is working with established pharmaceutical companies to develop a new class of drugs that modulate the microbiome.

Vedanta's partners include Janssen and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Together, the company hopes to create treatments for conditions such as C. difficile, IBD, advanced cancers, and food allergies.

Vedanta has raised $112.1 million and is valued at $316.6 million, according to PitchBook. The company is in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has been backed by high-profile funders, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Backed by the venture arms of high-profile biotechs such as the Mayo Clinic, Roche, and Pfizer, Second Genome bills itself as a "clinical stage pharmaceutical company with a mission to redefine disease in the context of microbiome medicine."

Since its founding in 2009, Second Genome has raised $63.8 million to identify peptides, proteins, and small molecules that could treat everything from autism and melanoma to ulcerative colitis, diabetes, and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). The South San Francisco, California-based company is valued at $87 million, according to PitchBook.

Founded in 2016, Viome is a nutrition-focused startup that hopes to help people track the health of their microbiomes by keeping tabs on what they eat. The company is based in Bellevue, Washington.

Investors such as Benioff, Khosla, and Peter Diamandis have helped Viome raise a total of $60 million; the company is valued at the same amount, according to PitchBook.

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Similar to Kallyope, Axial Biotherapeutics is focused on the gut-brain axis.

The company hopes to develop a variety of new drugs that treat disorders of the central nervous system and has raised $54.2 million, according to PitchBook. Axial is in Waltham, Massachusetts, and was founded in 2013.

DayTwo, another nutrition-focused microbiome startup, offers people with diabetes a digital-health tool. Using insights from the microbiome, DayTwo's digital tool helps users create personalized meal plans to balance their blood sugar.

DayTwo, which is in Walnut Creek, California, has raised $48 million from investors such as the Mayo Clinic, Samsung Next, and JLabs, Johnson & Johnson's innovation hub.