Building the platform for human growth

One thing that has always made BetterUp unique is our belief that well-being and performance are not two separate pursuits but one interconnected growth journey. Guided by our own personal experiences with coaching, mentoring, and therapy, my co-founder, Eddie Medina, and I were convinced that helping people pursue what Abraham Maslow called “self-actualization” would be key to strengthening their well-being and unlocking their potential. 

When we started the company eight years ago, we had a vision to build a “gym for mental health.” We saw the need for an experience packed with powerful, personalized care you couldn’t get anywhere else, interactive evidence-based digital exercises and programs that you could do on-the-go, vicarious learning via an empathetic community of like-minded people, and insightful feedback loops to track your progress and optimize growth, all in one place. 

By bringing this vision to life, we knew that we could support everyone on their journey, whether they needed to go from a negative to a functional state or grow beyond functional to fantastic. We decided to start by supporting professionals like us, who were looking to find clarity, purpose, and passion to achieve higher levels of performance and fulfillment. Our goal was to focus first on advancing the technology, science, and practices that would enable us to, one day, broaden the care we provide to address the full spectrum of mental health and human transformation.

To date, we’ve made meaningful progress on our “first act” of building the gym for mental health. 

We’ve worked with more than 300 progressive enterprise companies to transform their cultures, develop high-performing teams, and build strong, healthy minds in the process. We saw a surge in demand as companies realized the crucial role they play in supporting employee health and well-being. Our customer base grew by 80% and the number of coaching sessions doubled. 

Listening to our customers' needs, we launched group-based Coaching Circles and new coaching specializations focused on resilience, working parents, and diversity, inclusion, and belonging. It’s incredibly fulfilling to see that 74% of our members rate their BetterUp sessions life-changing or amazing, and we are inspired to do more. 

This past year was a big inflection point for BetterUp, and we realized that we are ready for our “second act” — expanding care to everyone, no matter where they are on their own mental health journey. 

Today, we are excited to announce that we secured $125 million in Series D funding. This round was led by ICONIQ Growth with participation by existing investors, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Threshold Ventures, and Plus Capital, and by new investors, Salesforce Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, and Mubadala Capital. The new funding will continue to drive our innovation roadmap, with a focus on BetterUp Care™, our latest integrated mental fitness offering, and to deliver the most comprehensive and personalized platform for human growth and development. 

Over the past year, we’ve heard one consistent theme when it comes to workplace mental health: it’s a fragmented industry with more and more point solutions coming onto the market. Our customers are asking for an integrated solution that makes it easy to provide the full breadth of support that people need. From mental fitness and mindfulness to leadership development solutions, they want it all in one platform.

BetterUp Care™ makes this possible. Organizations can now offer personalized support for every employee, wherever they are on the mental health spectrum — whether it’s coping with heightened stress or being a better leader in a challenging moment. Using science-backed assessments and AI-powered algorithms, BetterUp Care™ guides each person on a customized journey with the human connection and relevant tools they need, at the moment they need them. This journey includes access to curated digital content, on-demand support, Coaching Circles, and the right mix of Care Coaches who specialize in behavioral health, parenting, nutrition, sleep, diversity and inclusion, and resilience.

Beyond a better employee experience, an integrated approach equips organizations with powerful analytics and insights on well-being, resilience, optimism, burnout, and belonging to keep a pulse on overall workforce health and performance, in real-time.

BetterUp Science Board Advisor, Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology and former President of the American Psychology Association, eloquently described the opportunity ahead of us: “We live in a time and place in which growth and building and positive-sum games are the future of the workplace. That’s a very different question from getting rid of what’s wrong. It's a question of building what’s right. That’s what BetterUp is about.”

We hope you’ll join us, along with progressive companies like Salesforce, Hilton, NASA, Chevron, Mars Inc, Genentech, and Warner Media, to help create a virtuous cycle of well-being, resilience, and performance for our people everywhere.