Synex founder, once detained at the border with an 80-pound magnet, is building portable MRIs to test glucose

Back in 2019, Synex Medical founder Ben Nashman spent the night detained by U.S. customs. Nashman tried to explain he was simply transporting materials from Buffalo to Toronto for his homemade MRI. Customs, however, took issue with the label on the package: “nuclear magnetic resonance.”

Nashman spent hours in a bright waiting room before he finally convinced them that he was really just a run-of-the-mill 18-year-old scientist with an obsession with MRI technology. They let him take his roughly 80-pound magnet, and he zoomed back to Toronto. “I got back at like 3 or 4 a.m. and got a few hours of sleep before classes,” he said.

Nashman, now 24, might have landed himself on a list of suspicious individuals, but he insists it was worth it: That one very long night was part of his years-long journey to build a portable MRI capable of testing glucose and other important molecules without the need to extract blood. Today, the company is one step closer to that goal, announcing a $21.8 million Series A fundraise, with investors like Accomplice, Radical Ventures, Fundomo, and Khosla Ventures. It brings the company’s total haul up to over $36 million, which includes seed funding from Sam Altman.

Right now, Synex’s prototype is the size of a toaster, although Nashman hopes to one day have it fit in your palm. It works by first using MRI to create a 3D image of the finger to find the best spot to test. It then uses something called magnetic resonance spectroscopy to send radio pulses that “excite the different molecules,” Nashman said. The machine then takes the signals from all the molecules and filters for a specific one. Synex will start with glucose testing, but will eventually track things like amino acids, lactate, and ketones.

The company introduced me to Diane Morency, a woman based in Massachusetts who has suffered from Type 2 diabetes for years. “I've got holes in my fingers,” she told me, adding she can no longer play her ukulele because of the pain. “It would be a godsend to not have to prick my [fingers] anymore.”

But there’s a reason non-invasive glucose testing hasn’t been commercialized: It’s difficult to track glucose accurately without drawing blood, and it’s even harder to make the device portable or affordable. “We believed that was going to be an absolute moonshot,” said Jun Jeon, an investor at Khosla Ventures focusing on healthcare.

Jeon has yet to try Nashman’s prototype but said that, if Nashman can deliver on his promises, then “this was a bet worth taking.”

An obsession with longevity

Nashman was always curious about living forever.

When he was about 16, he walked into his vet’s office armed with printed-out scientific studies. He had determined that his dog should be put on the immunosuppressive drug rapamycin, a drug controversially heralded by longevity enthusiasts. The vet had no idea what Nashman was talking about. “He was just like, ‘this is just way too experimental for me,’” Nashman recalled.

The vet’s refusal didn’t deter him. “Later, I got my parents on it and I got on it,” he laughed. “Honestly, I think everything should be on it.”

It was the first of several longevity self-experiments. Nashman briefly took the diabetes drug acarbose, forked over thousands for a Prenuvo full body scan, and, like so many in Silicon Valley before him, got his hands on a continuous glucose monitor. His health obsession coincided with a fascination with physics — particularly the “elegant” science behind MRIs, and how much they could reveal about the human body.

By 17, he had ordered materials online to make a makeshift MRI in his bedroom (it was “really crap,” he said). By 18, he had held an internship working on brain imaging at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and enrolled at the University of Toronto for engineering science. “I think I have the record for most MRIs ever, probably,” he said. “I’ve probably scanned my finger honestly thousands of times at this point.”

He realized that MRI technology could be the ultimate longevity hack, giving him more information about his body than an Oura Ring or Whoop ever could. He first sold his dreams to Altman, whom he met in 2019, and then Peter Thiel, landing the Thiel Fellowship in 2021.

Nashman may have Silicon Valley’s overlords on his side, but he’s still entering a very crowded space with well-capitalized competition. Startups like Know Labs and Berlin-based DiaMonTech are both making their own non-invasive products. Apple has reportedly been quietly working on a non-invasive glucose monitor, and Google too once tried to make its own glucose monitoring contact lens before pausing the project in 2018.

Synex Medical faces an uphill battle from here. The company will have to undergo rigorous clinical trials to prove to the FDA that its machine can accurately isolate glucose molecules. There’s also the lingering question of whether Nashman can really get technology to a portable size. If not, “It wouldn't be too useful,” Morency said. “It would do us no good outside of the house.”

But let’s say Nashman nails all of that. Let’s say Synex soars through its FDA-approved trials and successfully shrinks its current metal toaster down to something that fits in your palm. It will still debut in a healthcare industry that has long struggled to make new technology affordable, according to Khosla investor Jeon. “There's not a lot of good infrastructure and reimbursement that will allow for all patients to have access to the technology,” Jeon said.

For Nashman, the chance for a longer life is worth dedicating his own life to. “I want to know exactly what my body needs. I want to know what my parents need,” he said. “A technology like this is just needed to usher in that age of predictive medicine.”