Mental-health-as-a-corporate-benefit startup Vittude announced on Tuesday that it has raised $7 million in a Series A round led by Crescera Capital (a Rio de Janeiro-based investment firm, formerly Bozano Investimentos), with participation from Endeavor Scale Up Ventures and Redpoint eventures, which was already an investor in the startup.
Vittude was born as a B2C platform for online mental health care, in 2016. An engineer by training, Tatiana Pimenta, CEO of the startup, decided to create the platform after she was diagnosed with depression.
In 2018, when the WHO (World Health Organization) said burnout syndrome would become an ICD (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Health-Related Problems) from 2020, Pimenta says she paid attention to this movement for business. And companies that paid attention to the alert sought out Vittude for corporate services.
Redpoint invested $1.2 million in Vittude in November 2019, which made the startup structure the sales machine for corporate clients. At the time, Vittude had six customers. “We set up the journey with the value proposition, we went from a company that had a few contracts to today having more than 150 clients and 60,000 lives under management, with contracts like Banco do Brasil, Boticário, L’Oréal,” said the CEO.
Now, with Series A, Pimenta intends to put the foot on the accelerator to reach 500 companies and 3 million people. The money will be used in hiring senior-level people and in the evolution of the product, which has a machine learning structure to make the prediction of relevant data for corporate customers and prevent employee illness. The program identifies patterns that lead to anxiety or Burnout, for example.
Vittude’s goal is that the employee does not get sick. And this is not only a benefit for the employee’s health but also the company’s finances, according to Pimenta. “If you are already in a severe degree, you have difficulty in concentration and focus. A person who can not get out of bed, can not even go to the workplace.
Besides, in January of this year, the WHO classified Burnout as a working disorder. What, according to Pimenta, is a warning for companies because this becomes part of the regulation of diseases related to work activities. And, according to Brazilian legislation, when an employee is away from work due to a labor illness, there are consequences for the employer. “If I go away because of work, the employee can sue the company and request material damages. In addition, the employer needs to pay 12 months of stability for that employee, which impacts the company’s cash flow,” he explains.
Vittude proposes that companies invest in the mental health of their employees as a way to avoid labor liabilities, in which a single lawsuit can generate a loss of R$ 1 million. “Not taking care ends up being more expensive,” said the CEO.
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the startup has grown revenue by 12 times. Vittude is remunerated by companies with an access fee. The client hires the startup’s service for one or two years, and Vittude offers its mental health therapy and education service to all employees of that corporation. The client company can subsidize the cost of the consultation in full or pay only part. “We have evidence that companies that paid in full for the sessions had better results,” said Pimenta.
Vittude develops the communication of emotional education together with the human resources area of the client company so that employees understand why they should go to therapy. “The team works with workshops so employees know how to build a safe environment and how to prevent getting sick of themselves. We see that burnout conditions are more common in managerial than operational positions, as there is stress with board and client pressure.”
When a company contacts the Vittude sales team, Pimenta explains that the startup makes a diagnosis of the company to understand if there are already sick employees and in which area, or if the service will enter as a benefit to add to the employer brand and attract and retain talent.
Besides the educational part, Vittude operates with online therapy sessions with psychologists. The startup does not work with psychiatrists.
The psychologist applies to be a professional of Vittude. According to Pimenta, the startup’s algorithm analyzes the profile of the professional to create a ranking and only the top 3% of subscribers can make appointments. These professionals are approved by Vittude’s health psychology team and pay a subscription to have their profile registered at the startup because it adds to them a recurring monthly income and a large customer base.
According to Pimenta, the service is not restricted to B2B. Some psychologists bring patients to the platform to take advantage of the electronic medical record and the financial service, which helps in the management of the clinic.
For the next 12 months, Vittude intends to triple revenue and at least double its current customer base.
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