- Mobile coaching company BetterUp announced it raised $103 million in Series C funding
- With this round of funding, BetterUp now has a valuation of $710 million
BetterUp, a mobile coaching company, announced that it raised $103 million in Series C growth financing. This round of funding was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from Threshold Ventures (formerly DFJ Venture), Freestyle Capital, Crosslink Capital, Tenaya Capital, and Silicon Valley Bank. According to Pitchbook, this round of funding gave BetterUp a $710 million valuation. Including this round of funding, BetterUp has raised more than $142 million.
What does BetterUp do? BetterUp has become known for helping workers live their lives with more clarity, passion, and purpose. And BetterUp mentally help employees with one-to-one coaching — which is available on demand 24/7 for improving leadership skills such as resilience, growth mindset, creativity, and collaboration along with driving new ways of leading and a new level of performance. BetterUp concentrates on the whole person and enables each worker to be a little better plus the company transforms entire organizations from the inside out.
This funding is believed to be the largest in the burgeoning field of tech-enabled employee coaching and behavioral change and wellness. Some of the company’s customers include Airbnb, Equinix, Instacart, Logitech, Mars, Symantec and Workday. And BetterUp tripled its growth in 2018 for the second consecutive year with more than 100 enterprise customers.
“We are proud to be enabling innovative companies who recognize that their biggest asset—their people—deserve an elevated employee experience that speaks to who they are as whole persons, not just employees,” said BetterUp CEO and co-founder Alexi Robichaux in a statement. “By combining human expertise, the latest advances in scientific research, and digital technologies including AI and machine learning we’re delivering unprecedented levels of personalized learning at scale. We’re transforming people and workplaces in the only way that’s sustainable—bottoms-up—one person at a time.”
Robichaux and COO Eduardo Medina founded BetterUp in 2013. Robichaux is a former director of product management at VMware and also served in executive roles at Socialcast, The Glenroe Group, and The Walt Disney Company. And Medina was a growth consultant at Envision Schools, a former associate at Altamont Capital Partners, and associate consultant at Bain & Company.
With this round of funding, BetterUp will expand internationally and hire new employees and coaches. Plus the company is going to develop new products and services for enabling companies to intelligently scaling and personalizing human development and support.
“BetterUp’s platform is designed to help people see and reach their potential,” added Adam Grant — who is a renowned organizational psychologist, a best-selling author, and a member of BetterUp’s Science Board. “People are the heart of every workplace, and making them better makes the organization better.”
Over $200 billion is spent per year on learning and development, but only 10% of it is effective since so much of the learning is quickly forgotten or does not transfer to the workplace. With BetterUp’s one-to-one personalized coaching provided in the flow of work, clients have seen positive results including a 26% jump in job performance, a 25% increase in focus, and a 15% reduction in burnout. Plus employee intent to stay with one organization increased by over 63% with BetterUp’s coaching.
“BetterUp is the one company fundamentally investing in the most important part of the future of work—human beings. No other company drives measurable outcomes that change lives and workplaces,” explained Lightspeed Ventures partner Will Kohler — who led BetterUp’s Series B round. “Its focus on driving change via human coaching—empowered and informed by technological tools—is the winning recipe for true, personalized human capital transformation and persistent behavior change.”
Last year, BetterUp expanded its platform for offering on-demand coaching and an extended network of experts for addressing issues like public speaking, sleep, and nutrition. And BetterUp is funding $20 million in evidence-based behavioral research as part of a commitment to the whole person — which encompasses a holistic and aspirational vision for human flourishing in all domains of life.
