Mentemia announces Series A funding to accelerate growth and help more people
ACC and Pathfinder have teamed up with Mentemia and Sir John Kirwan to transform workplace wellbeing and mental health in the workplace.
Today we're announcing that we have officially closed our Series A funding round.
Welcome aboard our workplace wellbeing mission to our new investors, ACC and Pathfinder.
ACC and Pathfinder join our existing investors in investing in our digital wellbeing platform. Mentemia is designed to help organisations operate better, leaders lead better, and individuals work and feel better daily by improving their mental wellbeing.
We’re thrilled that they see the importance and impact a wellbeing first approach within organisations can have. The entire Mentemia team is incredibly excited that they believe in and back our vision.
With this investment, we can reach more people and have more impact. We will be scaling our product, engineering, sales, and marketing teams so that we can truly transform workplace cultures.
Change is needed more than ever in this new era. The world’s mental wellbeing has deteriorated, with global challenges like the Covid-19 pandemic greatly accelerating the crisis.
We all have mental wellbeing. People at all levels are affected by stress and anxiety. That’s why we take an integrated approach with scalable digital solutions. People need tools, resources and solutions that work daily, before their mental health deteriorates.
From the leaders we speak with, we know that they want to do more. They know they need to do more. Some don’t have the time or aren’t sure where to start. That’s what we’re here to help with.
We want to make it easy for organisations and help them to create a culture change where leaders and their people thrive. That’s how we’ll help 100 million people, and save 100,000 lives.
Our approach works because we take a human-first approach. We look at everything that encompasses good wellbeing, from sleep and nutrition, to daily stress management and self-care.
It’s crucial to recognise that what works for people is hugely individual. We help people figure out what works to keep them well and how to do these things daily, so they can be the best version of themselves, at home and at work. By instilling day-to-day habits, we help them to build momentum to flourish.
At an organisational level, we help embed simple but powerful micro-rituals into the workplace and help facilitate a culture change so that the organisation, leaders, and staff, all take a wellbeing first approach.
As well as being the right thing to do, investing in mental wellbeing can have a huge ROI for organisations. Minds are what do the heavy lifting, and a strong mind is more equipped to create better solutions, faster, and be more innovative.
Your people are what gives your business a competitive edge. So if you’re looking to support your people to be their very best and create real change in your business, we can help.
We’re here to help you embed a culture of wellbeing that will create great momentum and be everlasting in your business.
And we’re hiring! We need more talented people to join our mission.
Keep an eye out for exciting new opportunities on our Careers page. If you’re passionate about what we’re doing, we’d love to hear from you. Send your CV and a message to jobs@mentemia.com.
Photo: Some of the Mentemia team on Pink Shirt Day, May 2021
Official press release
Monday 24 May 2021
ACC is teaming up with Mentemia and Sir John Kirwan by investing in the workplace wellbeing platform he co-founded in 2019 with serial tech entrepreneur Adam Clark.
The digital mental wellbeing platform helps employers embed a wellbeing-first culture across their organisation, their leaders and their people. This is the second investment for ACC’s $50 million Impact Fund, which was launched last year with the twin aims of improving the health, safety, and wellbeing of New Zealanders and providing a commercial investment return that helps keep levies low.
Mentemia has become the NZ market leader in digital mental wellbeing since launching in 2020, with leading companies like Fletcher Building, Chorus and Kiwibank among their client base. Along with specially designed events and programs for leaders, Mentemia provides a practical way for employees to build mental health literacy and improve their wellbeing in a private, secure and personalised way.
“It’s outstanding to have the support of ACC,” Sir John says. “If we bake mental wellbeing into the day to day workplace, it’s simple - organisations will operate better, leaders will lead better, and individuals in the team will live and work better. I strongly believe that if we do a great job of this, we will see a reduction in accidents and injuries along with the other personal, organisational and societal benefits of a mentally well workforce.”
Mental health is the primary cause of lost working days and productivity loss in most Westernised countries and supporting good mental health has benefits to businesses and workers alike. In 2019/20, ACC paid $65.5m for active work-related mental injury costs and $312m for mental injuries as a result of physical injuries in 2019/20.
Studies show mental health accounts for a loss of 5% of GDP in OECD countries and is a significant cause of suicide and disability worldwide. Mental health conditions, particularly depression, are a significant risk factor for higher rates of injury, slower rates of recovery and increased ACC claims costs.
“Improving mental health and wellbeing can help bring down injury rates, speed recovery and reduce the cost in ACC claims,” says Impact Fund advisor George Adams. “We encourage more companies to recognise the benefits of supporting the wellbeing of their workers including better productivity and less time lost to injuries.”
The other new investor in Mentemia is ethical fund manager Pathfinder KiwiSaver Plan. Pathfinder and ACC join existing investors including Sir John, CEO Adam Clark, Icehouse Ventures and Sir Stephen Tindall’s K One W One.
The Mentemia platform is a great way to support the wellbeing of workers across all industries and ACC is encouraged to see building companies among early adopters, Adams says. “We know the building boom has put this sector under even more pressure – it has the highest injury claim rate of any industry and one of the highest fatality rates.”
The investment in Mentemia follows the announcement of ACC’s partnership with Construction Health and Safety New Zealand (CHASNZ), an industry-backed charitable trust dedicated to improving health and safety in the construction industry.
Mentemia is an attractive investment opportunity for ACC because it has a high-quality team with a strong profile in the NZ market and a compelling growth strategy globally, ACC’s Adams says. “This investment was a perfect fit with ACC’s purpose to improve the wellbeing of New Zealanders, and there is significant market opportunity in employee health and wellness that is undergoing positive disruption due to technology solutions.”
Details of ACC’s investment aren’t being made public, but it sits within the $2 million-to-$15 million range that the Impact Fund targets.
“The investment is another positive step in helping us reach our goal of improving the mental wellbeing of 100 million people and saving 100,000 lives,” says Mentemia CEO Clark. “We plan to significantly increase the size of our product and engineering team and will be making increased investments into sales and marketing to further accelerate Mentemia’s growth globally and in New Zealand.”
Mentemia adds to ACC’s investments that improve the wellbeing of New Zealanders, including the Impact Fund’s debut investment in Robotics Plus, which improves safety for logging workers, our partnership with rural wellbeing champions Farm strong.
ACC’s Private Markets team welcomes interest from companies, organisations and funds seeking investment in proposals that improve health, safety and wellbeing.