Akanksha Gupta of MicrobioTx on Scaling Gut Microbiome Testing, Personalised Probiotics, and Building Trust in Preventive Health

StartupTalky presents Recap'25, a series of exclusive interviews where we connect with founders and industry leaders to reflect on their journey in 2025 and discuss their vision for the future.

In this edition of Recap’25, StartupTalky speaks with Akanksha Gupta, Co-founder at MicrobioTx, who shares insights on building India’s first CDSCO-approved gut microbiome test and making precision gut health more accessible for consumers. She reflects on how preventive healthcare is evolving from generic wellness advice toward data-driven, personalised interventions—and why scientific credibility is now the biggest differentiator in health innovation.

Gupta explains how MicrobioTx is addressing this shift through objective measurement and scalable diagnostics, including its Gut Function Test and personalised probiotic solutions. The conversation explores the company’s approach to simplifying microbiome assessment through a finger-prick blood test, the role of AI/ML models in predicting gut microbial profiles, and the challenges of building awareness and trust in a science-led category. She also shares key learnings from 2025 and MicrobioTx’s expansion roadmap, including deeper doctor collaborations, diversification into other microbiomes, and strengthening research and data science capabilities to take preventive health from research to real-world impact.

StartupTalky:  What products does MicrobioTx sell? What was the motivation / vision behind starting the MicrobioTx?

Akanksha Gupta: It currently provides the “Gut Function Test,” India’s first gut microbiome test approved by CDSCO. It also offers personalized probiotic products named “Personal ProbioTx.” These products utilize a simple blood test taken through a “finger prick” followed by personalized diet recommendations. It also offers personalized probiotic products that require a “finger prick blood test.”

The need for MicrobioTx arose from an observation of the imbalance between the rapid progress happening in the microbiome space and the adoption rate. The fact that people are very concerned about their gut health today, while not many are assessing their gut health through scientific means, as it was inconvenient and costly, gave us an opportunity in creating an initiative in India.

StartupTalky: How has the industry changed in recent years and how has your company adapted?

Akanksha Gupta: What started out with generic lifestyle advice and off-the-shelf probiotics has very quickly shifted into data-driven, personalized health solutions. Instead of general suggestions, consumers today want to understand, through measures, how their body is responding to a particular intervention.

MicrobioTx adapted to this move by objective measurement and precision. We had to shift from measuring microbes directly from stool to adopting indirect, metabolite-based approaches using blood markers with an in-house AI/ML model that could predict gut microbial profiles. We are proud that this has helped us provide a test that is not only scientifically sound but far more accessible and highly scalable for Indian consumers.

StartupTalky: What were the most significant challenges in the past year and how did you overcome them?

Akanksha Gupta: The main issue in this regard is awareness or trust. It is understood that gut health is important. However, developing enough confidence that this is an area that requires focus and assessment is not so easy. Moreover, achieving a level of trust that a prick-of-the-finger blood test can assess the gut microbiome is not an easy task.

We dealt with it through clinical validation and transparency. We have carried out clinical studies with prominent academic and research institutions; obtained regulatory approvals; published findings from our researches; and interacted directly with doctors. All these activities are core in countering doubts and in gaining long-term credibility.

StartupTalky: What opportunities do you see for future growth in India and globally? Differences across Indian markets?

Akanksha Gupta: In India, there is an excellent growth opportunity with growing awareness about preventive health, an increase in lifestyle disorders, and an openness towards customized wellness solutions. We also have an excellent opportunity in international markets, especially where there is growing adoption for precision medicine and preventive healthcare.

Within India, market dynamics are very diverse when it comes to regions, states, and cities. However, when it comes to preventive healthcare, all the markets in India come together as there is a growing awareness and willingness to spend in all markets.

StartupTalky: What lessons did your team learn in the past year?

Akanksha Gupta: “One of the most important things that we've learned is that a great product by itself is not enough to get adopted.” The need to balance innovation with education and be able to put in efforts in market building has been one such learning from them.

These takeaways will help guide our strategy as we look to expand beyond other microbiomes, and really focus on bringing research to practical, real-life applications.

StartupTalky: How do you plan to expand customers, SKUs and the team?

Akanksha Gupta: The growth of customers will continue to come from collaborations between doctors and practitioners, as the gut testing market in India is referral-driven. Product-wise, we will look to diversify from just the gut space to other human microbiomes, besides scaling our personalized probiotic and nutritional offerings.

From an overall team point of view, we also aim to enhance the research teams, data science teams, and our current business teams, given that we are very expansionist in our plans.

StartupTalky: One tip you would like to share with another founder

Akanksha Gupta: Take the time to build, and let science, data and credibility guide. Short cuts will give visibility, but in deep-tech and health innovation, only rigour and consistency through validation create long-term trust. Focus on solving a real problem well, and scale will follow.

Explore more Recap'25 interviews here.