Employee Wellness Unicorn BetterUp Raises $125M to Expand Behavioral Coaching

BetterUp, a virtual coaching and counseling platform for employees and businesses, has raised $125 million in a Series D funding round, bringing the company’s valuation up to $1.73 billion.

Funding for the latest round — which the San Francisco-based wellness unicorn announced Thursday — was led by ICONIQ Growth. Lightspeed Venture Partners, Plus Capital and Threshold Ventures, all previous investors of the company, also participated in the latest round, along with new investors Salesforce Ventures, Mubadala Capital and Sapphire Ventures.

Founded in 2013, BetterUp uses AI technology and behavioral science to create customized mobile coaching services for members, who are employees of BetterUp’s enterprise clients. Services are designed to help members achieve individual and organizational goals and are usually available to all of a workplace’s employees. To date, BetterUp has more than 100,000 members.

BetterUp employs over 270 workers and more than 2,000 coaches, comprising the largest coaching network in the world, according to the company. It counts more than 300 enterprise businesses as customers, including Chevron (NYSE: CVX), Genentech, Hilton (NYSE: HLT), Mars Inc., NASA, Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) and Warner Media.

The funding news comes as coaching has emerged as an alternative to other mental health treatments for individuals with lower level needs who may not necessarily require a therapist. The financial data firm MarketResearch.com has previously valued the health coaching market at $6 billion and asserts that the nation’s health care costs can be reduced through the creation of employer health coaching plans that address needs like mental health. 

Within the past year, BetterUp says that their recurring revenue more than doubled, its customer base grew by 80% and its net revenue retention rate was upwards of 140%.

The money raised in the most recent round will go into the development of new products, including an integrated mental fitness service called BetterUp Care, according to the company. BetterUp Care will offer coaching with behavioral health specialists, curated content, on-demand support, parenting specialists, nutrition specialists, sleep specialists, group coaching and digital learning.

“By investing in their employees’ growth, our customers have seen measurable behavior change in their cultures and significant outcomes across their businesses,” Alexi Robichaux, BetterUp’s CEO and co-founder, said in a statement. “With the addition of [BetterUp] Care, we can extend this impact to organizations who recognize mental fitness as the biggest lever in helping people thrive through change.”

The latest funding round brings BetterUp’s total amount of money raised up to $269.8 million, according to fundraising tracking site Crunchbase. Additional investors in the company include Crosslink Capital, Freestyle Capital and Tenaya Capital, as well as professional basketball player Pau Gasol and skateboarder and Olympic gold-medalist winner Shaun White.