BetterUp

Founded by Alexi Robichaux and Eduardo Medina in 2013, BetterUp is a mobile-first coaching, counseling, and mentorship platform that pairs employees with a dedicated coach to cultivate leadership behaviors that support personal growth, professional development, and holistic wellbeing. The platform, which combines coaching with AI technology and behavioral science, offers interactive professional development content, analytics, and real-time insights to track employee progress. BetterUp is reportedly the world’s largest coaching network, with more than 3,000 coaches serving 380+ enterprise businesses in 60 languages across 70+ countries as of July 2023.

In March 2021, BetterUp introduced BetterUp Care, a comprehensive mental fitness program for enterprises that provides access to coaching with behavioral health specialists, curated content, on-demand support, parenting specialists, nutrition specialists, sleep specialists, group coaching, and digital learning, aiming to assist employees in problem-solving and adapting to change. As part of its increased focus on mental health, the company appointed Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, as Chief Impact Officer.

In September 2021, BetterUp made two strategic acquisitions: Motive, an AI-based software company, and Impraise, a workforce collaboration solution provider. Motive offers proprietary AI-based technology including an Emotion API that identifies emotions in language by applying machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) to multi-channel data. This acquisition will allow BetterUp to leverage Motive's AI technology and develop its leadership platform. The acquisition of Impraise will allow BetterUp to accelerate efforts to scale its operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and strengthen its research and development capabilities. Amsterdam-based Impraise will be BetterUp’s third outpost in Europe in addition to its offices in Munich and London. Both Motive and Impraise serve a wide range of customers globally, including Skyscanner, eBay, Achmea, Sony, and CERN, some of which will be given access to BetterUp’s corporate learning solutions.

Key customers and partnerships

In March 2022, BetterUp and Walmart announced a new partnership to offer "BetterUp for Caregivers," a curated subscription and community offering exclusively available through The Wellness Hub on Walmart.com. BetterUp and Salesforce have been partners since 2017, and in April 2023, announced the integration of BetterUp's Sales Performance solution with Salesforce's Sales Cloud platform, to offer customers access to specialized sales coaching provided by BetterUp.

Funding and financials

In October 2021, BetterUp raised USD 300 million in a Series E funding round led by Wellington Management, ICONIQ Growth, and Lightspeed Venture Partners, bringing its post-money valuation to USD 4.7 billion. It planned to use the funds for further product development, and for international expansion. The round follows its USD 125 million Series D funding round in March 2021.