Bootstrapped to €500M, Kilo bets on longevity and a €1B revenue target
What's the deal? Lithuania's Kilo Health — rebranded simply as Kilo — is repositioning itself as a venture studio after scaling consumer health brands to over 10 million users across more than nine countries. The bootstrapped company posted €234M in revenue and €11M in EBITDA in 2024, and expects to close 2025 at around €500M in revenue without ever taking external funding.
The rebrand signals a strategic shift: Kilo now co-founds and invests in early-stage startups across health, longevity, beauty, and travel. Investment tickets range from €50,000 to €1M, with follow-on funding of up to €10M.
Why now? Kilo's chief executive Žygimantas Surintas sees the longevity market reaching an inflection point. "People are educated enough now that we can talk about mass products — what works and what's proven versus what's just noise," he said. The company plans to launch four or five longevity products this year.
It is also betting heavily on AI, with plans to invest up to €20M in AI development over the next three years, targeting €1B in consolidated annual revenue.
What could go wrong? Kilo's move from operating brands to co-founding startups is a meaningful strategic stretch. Running a venture studio requires different muscle than building direct-to-consumer products, and the company acknowledges it grew too fast in the past — creating control problems when conditions turned turbulent.
Its caution around AI is deliberate but carries its own risk. Surintas pointed to a rival that automated media buying with machine learning and saw sales drop 40% after cutting more than half its team. Gradual adoption may be prudent, but it could also slow Kilo's competitive edge as AI reshapes the health tech space.
The signal: Kilo's story is a rare European counterexample to the venture-backed growth playbook. Reaching €500M in revenue without external capital — built from a small office over 12 years — runs against the grain of a startup ecosystem that typically prizes speed-at-all-costs over financial discipline.
Its pivot to venture studio also reflects a broader pattern: profitable consumer health operators using their data, distribution, and compliance infrastructure as a platform to back the next generation of founders, rather than selling or going public.
Source:
TechEU
A.M.
