Sometimes startup stories sound so lucky, so full of unexpected twists, you might think fate itself had a hand in making them happen. That’s exactly how things unfolded for Throne, an Austin-based company building an AI-powered device that monitors gut health — all from your toilet.
Throne just raised $4 million in a seed round led by Katie Jacobs Stanton of Moxxie Ventures, with support from a mix of venture capitalists and high-profile angel investors like Lance Armstrong, Tara Viswanathan from Rupa Health, and Justin Mares, founder of TrueMed.
But here’s the twist: Throne isn’t a toilet itself. It’s a smart device that attaches to your existing toilet bowl. Using cameras and AI, it analyzes your gut health by monitoring hydration, urological function, and signs of chronic conditions — all in the privacy of your own home. The startup even built privacy safeguards, like anonymizing the images collected, to keep things secure.
Currently, Throne is in pre-production with a working prototype and plans to launch in January 2026, according to co-founder and CEO Scott Hickle.
In addition to the funding, the startup announced it hired John Capodilupo as chief product officer. Capodilupo is well-known for co-founding and serving as CTO of the WHOOP smartwatch — a major player in wearable health tech.
But how did a couple of engineers end up building a smart toilet startup? The story began in 2021 during a poker game in Austin. Mechanical engineer Scott Hickle and software whiz Tim Blumberg were joking around with friends, tossing out startup ideas no one would want to publicly admit.
“When Tim said ‘smart toilets,’ I burst out laughing and said, ‘Obviously, you’d call that company Throne,’” Hickle recalls.
What started as a joke quickly turned into a serious mission — and now Throne is on track to transform how we think about health monitoring, one flush at a time.
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