- Calm — the popular meditation and relaxation app — is now hitting $150 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and has raised $27 million
Calm — the popular meditation and relaxation app — announced a number of milestones recently. Launched last year, the Calm Sleep Stories feature hit more than 150 million listens from the app’s 2 million paid subscribers and 50 million downloads. And Calm also raised $27 million in Series B extension from Lightspeed along with a number of celebrity angel investors at a valuation of more than $1 billion.
This funding round added to the $88 million Series B round led by TPG that was announced in February. So now the total Series B round is at $115 million and Calm has now raised a total of more than $140 million.
And the funding round will enable Calm to expand from guided meditations to launch more self-help classes, breathing exercises, children stories, celebrity readings, and music tracks. Calm’s head of communications Alexia Marchetti told TechCrunch that the company is planning to “double down on entertainment,” including more celebrity content tie-ins later this summer.
“Calm’s sleep stories have reduced the time it takes me to nod off from 30 minutes to less than 5. That’s more than 150 hours of extra sleep every year. Thank you, Calm,” wrote Lightspeed partner Nicole Quinn in a Medium blog post. “Not only is Calm addressing some of the most important mental health issues many of us struggle with — insomnia, anxiety, depression, and stress — it’s also growing at a phenomenal rate.”
Calm charges $70 per year for a subscription. And the Calm app features voices from celebrities like actors Matthew McConaughey and Stephen Fry, tennis legend John McEnroe, and singer Leona Lewis.
Last year, Calm quadrupled its revenue to hit $150 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and it achieved profitability, according to TechCrunch. This is a significant jump from $80 million in 2018 and $20 million in 2017.
Quinn also said that the engagement and retention spiked following the launch of Sleep Stories. And now Sleep Stories is a “huge percentage of the business.”
Calm was founded by Alex Tew and Michael Acton Smith. In an interview with Calm investor Jason Calacanis, Tew — who is known for launching the Million Dollar Homepage in 2005 — had purchased the domain name Calm.com for $140,000 several years ago. Smith is also the founder, chairman, and creative director of Mind Candy and was previously the CEO of Firebox.com.
Here is an example of a 10-minute mindful meditation session on Calm:
