At Clean Market in Midtown, New Yorkers have a wide menu of healthy offerings to choose from, such as "superfood smoothies" and bowls with a side of a "moon dust of choice."
But if clean food isn't enough, customers can also get a boost from vitamins delivered intravenously at the NutriDrip bar. The service is growing in popularity and attracting customers from fitness and lifestyle companies like Equinox to some major hotel chains.
NutriDrip sells 15 vitamin infusions administered by medical professionals via an IV drip that takes about 30 minutes. The Nutribody drip aims to support fat loss with a combination of l-carnitine, taurine, vitamin C, B complex, among others. There are also the popular hangover remedies Basic Recover, Super Recovery and Mega Recovery which range in price from $119 to $199 depending on how much you're hurting from the night before. The Nutriyouth drip claims the ability to "help stop cellular aging in its tracks" with a mixture of anti-aging enzymes, molecules and vitamins for $599.
Founded five years ago, NutriDrip is looking to expand in 2020 with a Series A funding round in the first half of this year. Executives declined to say how much money they're looking to raise.
"Over the last three years, IV nutrient therapy, specifically NutriDrip, has grown, at like a 60 to 80% year-over-year growth rate, even while opening new stores," said co-founder Asa Kitfield. "So we're really excited to see what sort of saturation the market can see on like a local and national basis."
One of its new corporate clients is Wynn Hotel will be offering NutriDrip IV drips to its guests in Las Vegas in early 2020.
A woman receives a vitamin infusion via intravenous drip.
Carlos Allegri | Reuters
"As many of our guests now expect a more holistic set of wellness options, we have evolved to include broader wellness themes related to functional wellness, physical fitness, and healthy cuisine," said a Wynn spokeswoman, adding "providing IV therapy is one more way to help our guests maintain personal wellness routines while they are traveling."
The Equinox Hotel in Hudson Yards also has been offering the service to guests when it opened last summer. Kitfield also told CNBC, NutriDrip is slowly rolling out the service to other Equinox gym locations in early 2020 as well.
Equinox executives Jeffrey Weinhaus and Harvey Spevak were early investors in NutriDrip parent company Clean Market, along with real estate investor Jack Terzi, Seritage Growth Properties CEO Ben Schall, fashion designer Andrew Rosen and venture capital firm Able Partners.
Celebrities, including Madonna, Rihanna and Simon Cowell, are reportedly fans of IV vitamin treatments, but it's drawn some controversy.
"Anytime you poke a hole in somebody's vein, there is some risk that they'll bleed excessively. There's also some risk that they will clot excessively," said Dr. David Katz, founding director of Yale University's Prevention Research Center. "So the risks are not great. And the risks are not very common, but there are risks, and the only way to justify any risk in medicine is by a greater likely benefit."
He said there is "minimal evidence that there is any meaningful benefit for most people."
Kitfield said NutriDrip doesn't make grand promises about its treatments but said the company and customers clearly believe in its benefits.
"When you look at our business where 50 to 60% of our revenue comes from regulars, and that's why we continue to grow, the proof is kind of in the pudding, Kitfield said.
According to the Global Wellness Institute, a nonprofit that tracks the industry, the global wellness market is a $4.5 trillion industry. While IV therapy and alternative medicine is a small portion of the overall spending, GWI says it's among the fastest-growing sectors.
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