Almond Systems CEO Eswar Priyadarshan

Palo Alto-based Almond Systems raised $9 million from Matrix Partners and Charles River Ventures to develop a product that helps people make healthy, personalized eating decisions.

The company's founding team CEO Eswar Priyadarshan, VP of Creative Development Jon Altschuler,  and VP of Engineering Ravi Chittari were all previously Apple employees. Before founding Almond Systems, the group sold its previous company Quattro Wireless to Apple for $275 million in 2010.

"Our specific focus is to extract and propagate a clear, personalized signal from all the noise that surrounds us about food choices, diets, nutritional data and ever-changing medical advice/counter-advice," the company wrote in a blog post. "We will tailor our recommendations to suit personal dietary needs: whether you’re paleo or vegan, Kosher or Halal, allergic to nuts or gluten, or simply want to 'eat healthy'."

To do this, the company plans to collect data about food from professionals in the food community, including nutritionists, chefs, behavioral scientists, and food bloggers and use this information provide users with insights presented in a "simple, personalized, engaging, and intuitive" way. The company explained on their blog that their product is far from having a launch date, but they do claim to have a working, early version of their product.

According to Almond Systems, its mission is to "let consumers take healthy, thoughtful and informed control of their food choices and consumption" by "enabling consumers to discover heathy food in a way that creates positive, lasting, health and lifestyle change".