Not long ago, the idea of installing a camera in your toilet might have seemed like a privacy nightmare dressed up as a health gimmick. But Throne Science, an Austin startup betting on bathroom-based diagnostics, just closed a $10 million Series A—and investors are taking the pitch seriously.
The round, which closed July 28, 2026, was led by Will Ventures, with a sprawling investor syndicate that includes Emerson Collective, Workshop, LEAD VC, Salt VC, Accomplice, and nearly a dozen others, according to Business Wire and Crunchbase News. That brings Throne's total haul to roughly $18 million since its 2023 founding—enough to suggest that the toilet bowl, long ignored as a data source, might finally be having its moment.
What Throne makes is exactly what it sounds like: a downward-facing camera sensor that clips onto the rim of a standard toilet. The device—called Throne One—runs more than a dozen AI models to analyze waste, scoring everything from gut health and hydration to urinary function and bathroom habits. It launched to consumers in February and March of this year, priced at $399 for the hardware plus $6 monthly for ongoing analysis. The company says it's HSA and FSA eligible, a detail that matters when you're asking people to surveil their own excrement.
The founding team has pedigree, if an unconventional one for the bathroom space. CEO Scott Hickle and CTO Tim Blumberg are joined by John Capodilupo, who left his post as CTO at wearables darling WHOOP in April 2022 and now serves as Throne's chief product officer. The company has since added Ben Grynol, formerly of metabolic tracking startup Levels, as VP of growth, Dr. Karan Rajan as Chief of Science, and David Strasfeld, PhD, who spent time at medical device company Lumicell, as SVP of R&D. Medical advisors include Dr. Fola May and Dr. Aasma Shaukat—gastroenterologists lending clinical credibility to what is, for now, a wellness product rather than a regulated medical device.
From Gut Tracking to Cancer Screening
Throne's ambitions extend well beyond logging bowel movements. The company quietly launched a beta version of its Gut Health AI coach earlier in July—a conversational interface meant to help users connect what's happening in the bathroom with diet, stress, and lifestyle choices. But the real bet, and the reason for this latest funding round, is clinical.
Throne wants to build what it calls a "smoke detector for colon cancer," although it is currently a wellness tool and not approved by the FDA as a diagnostic device. The idea is to shift colorectal and urinary tract cancer screening from episodic colonoscopies and checkups to continuous, passive monitoring at home. It's an appealing vision, particularly as colorectal cancer rates climb among younger adults—the American Cancer Society projects 108,860 new colon cancer cases and 49,990 rectal cancer cases in 2026 alone.
Whether the company can deliver on that vision remains an open question. Throne currently operates as a general wellness tool, not an FDA-cleared diagnostic. But it has validation studies underway with Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Chicago, and has been accepted to present an academic abstract claiming its stool-form assessments match the accuracy of board-certified gastroenterologists, according to Crunchbase News. Those are early signals, not proof—but enough, perhaps, to justify the R&D spend that this Series A will fund.
The fresh capital will go toward hiring and toward moving the product closer to clinical-grade screening. That means navigating the FDA's regulatory pathway, a notoriously slow and expensive process that has claimed more than a few promising health tech startups.
A Crowded, Curious Market
Throne isn't alone in the bathroom monitoring space, though it's still a niche corner of consumer health tech. Kohler, better known for faucets and bathtubs, launched pre-orders for its Dekoda toilet camera in October 2025 at $599. Withings offers U-Scan, a urine-analysis puck that floats in the bowl and retails from $379.95 in the U.S. Casana's Heart Seat, which measures cardiovascular metrics through a toilet seat, earned FDA 510(k) clearance back in May 2023—proof that regulators are willing to approve bathroom-based devices, provided the data holds up.
Throne's pricing undercuts Kohler's but sits above Withings', a positioning that suggests the company sees itself as premium but accessible. The device currently ships only within the United States, and the company is exploring distribution beyond its direct-to-consumer model. That includes partnerships with functional medicine clinicians and academic research institutions, per Crunchbase News—channels that could help Throne build credibility while it chases regulatory approval.
There's skepticism to navigate here. Consumers have proven willing to track their sleep, steps, and heart rate. Whether they'll pay to monitor their stool is a different question entirely, one that hinges on whether Throne can demonstrate real clinical utility. The company's bet is that early cancer detection—something genuinely life-saving—will overcome the ick factor.
For now, Throne is a wellness product with clinical aspirations and a growing pile of investor capital. Whether it becomes the smoke detector it wants to be, or just another data-hungry gadget cluttering the smart home, will depend on what those validation studies show—and whether the company can survive the long, uncertain march toward FDA clearance.
