Blisce
Auto Added by WPeMatico
Headspace raises $93 million in equity and debt as it pursues clinical validation for mindfulness
Headspace, the Los Angeles-based mindfulness and meditation company locked in a bitter competitive struggle with Calm for leadership in the mental wellness world, has raised new capital to try to take the pole position.
The company has just closed on $93 million in new equity and debt financing from a slew of investors as it pursues a number of clinical studies that could provide scientific validation for the somewhat nebulous claims around the benefits associated with mindfulness and meditation.
That clinical validation can also unlock new dollars in the form of government payments for mindfulness therapies that could be used to treat a variety of conditions. It also makes more valid the company’s pitch to companies as a useful component of an employee benefit program.
The company touted a pipeline of 70 clinical studies working in conjunction with academic partners, including Carnegie Mellon, University of California San Francisco and Stanford University.
Headspace’s new cash comes from investment firm blisce, with participation from Waverly Capital, Times Bridge (the investment arm of The Times Group of India), The Chernin Group, Spectrum Equity and Advancit Capital. A $40 million debt financing from Pacific Western Bank supplemented the $53 million in equity.
“Headspace has shown millions of people the power of using mindfulness to mitigate stress, anxiety, and other everyday issues while continuing to advance the field through clinically-validated research,” said Richard Pierson, the chief executive and co-founder of Headspace, in a statement. “As we think about the next ten years and beyond, we are focused on harnessing this power and applying it to other areas of our members’ lives to help them create healthy routines that last a lifetime — whether that is through our Headspace consumer app, the work we currently do with hundreds of employers, or with healthcare providers as we look to deliver better access.”
So far the company’s app has been loaded more than 62 million times in 190 countries. It already has over 2 million paid subscribers and more than 600 businesses are using Headspace’s on-the-job mental wellness tool.
The new money will be used to double down on its pitch to businesses and healthcare practitioners, according to a statement from the company, as well as to look at international markets. The company already has German and French versions of the app and has appointed the Apple executive Renate Nyborg to lead its European expansion.
As the new cash comes in, Headspace also has more money to compete for the attention of consumers with Calm, which raised an $88 million round (one that valued the company at over $1 billion) a little over a year ago.
Backed by TPG Capital and the entertainment agency CAA, Calm has recently inked deals with big time celebrities like LeBron James, who also has an equity stake in the company.
Calm’s approach seems to center more on a direct-to-consumer strategy that has seen the company enlist celebrities like James, John McEnroe, Matthew McConaughey’s and the English comedian, actor and writer Stephen Fry.
Powered by WPeMatico
Video news startup Brut raises $40M, officially launches in the US
Digital media startup Brut is announcing that it has raised $40 million in Series B funding. The money will be used, in part, to finance its launch in the United States.
CEO Guillaume Lacroix said that he and his co-founders all come from the French TV industry, where they were all “frustrated not to be able to follow up the conversation” on social media. So they created Brut as a way to deliver video news that felt conversational and authentic, hoping to spark viewer conversation, then take advantage of that commentary to find future stories.
“We always say to journalists, ‘Forget the audience, think about your two best friends,’ ” Lacroix told me. “Would you be excited to have this conversation tonight with your friends? If yes, let’s do it.”
The publisher focuses on topics like social good and social impact — for example, it published the first viral video featuring climate change activist Greta Thunberg. Lacroix argued that Brut’s audience is looking for solutions, not just problems, in contrast to the “negative news cycle” that they see on traditional media.
“People are not waiting anymore — they don’t wait for institutions to do it, they don’t wait for the collectivity to do it,” he said. “It’s very inspiring to see someone who takes even a small action.”
At the same time, he doesn’t want Brut’s journalists to veer too heavily into advocacy or activism themselves: “We don’t do a call to action, we’re not activists, we don’t point a finger. We just shine a light on people who are trying to do something to change the world.”
In many ways, Brut seems to check off the same boxes (it aims to reach a millennial/Gen Z audience with short videos on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat) that many U.S. digital media startups did before they started to struggle and consolidate over the past few years.
But Lacroix said the startup’s approach is working — not just in terms of reaching an audience, but also building a real business. Brut is already profitable in France, and it plans to be profitable in the U.S. within three years.
Asked whether he’s worried about relying on social platforms to reach his audience, Lacroix argued that even if you focus on publishing on your own website, you’re reliant on Google for traffic.
“For me, it’s not a problem of distribution, if you’re diversified enough,” he said. “It’s a problem of: What’s your business model? Why did Spotify explode from day one? They have a global DNA. It’s exactly the same for us.”
For example, Lacroix said that Brut’s audience is concerned about many of the same issues no matter what country they’re in. And the company is able to produce content for them in a relatively low-cost way, because it can shoot a video in French or English, then add subtitles in a variety of languages — most audiences won’t even notice because they’re watching on their phones, with the sound off.
To be clear, Brut hasn’t exactly been ignoring the U.S. market before this. The company said it has an audience of 30 million daily active viewers across the globe, including in the United States, and it opened an office in New York City a couple of years ago. By “launching” here, Brut means it’s hiring an advertising sales force to start monetizing that audience.
The company previously raised €10 million (approximately $11.1 million) from Kima Ventures, according to Crunchbase. The new funding was led by Red River West and blisce, with participation from Aryeh Bourkoff, Eric Zinterhofer and others.
“When deciding where to invest, we look for mission-driven companies whose values are aligned with our own,” said blisce founder and CEO Alexandre Mars in a statement. “Like blisce’s previous investments in Spotify, Pinterest and Bird, we believe that Brut’s unique global approach represents a special competitive advantage, as well as an understanding that business success and positive social impact are inextricably linked.”
Powered by WPeMatico