Meditopia, a Turkish-German startup that offers personalized mindfulness services to people across the world, has raised USD 15 million in a Series A co-led by European early-stage VC Creandum—an early backer of Spotify—and Highland Europe, the Geneva-headquartered European growth investor.
Founded in 2015 by Berk Yilmaz, Fatih Celebi, and Ali Murat in Turkey, the startup that now has dual headquarters in Istanbul and Berlin, has built a mental coach platform that offers guided meditations to users in 75 markets. The meditations are available in the form of programs spread across different (pre-recorded) sessions and quick two-to-twelve minute standalone sessions.
Some of the content on Meditopia’s platform—that is available as an Android and iOS app—is available for free while for the rest, the users have to buy a subscription that costs about USD 50 per year. The platform also offers users a one-week free trial of its premium subscription.
It claims to have coached over 14 million members since its launch in 2017. For context, Calm—the leading player in the mental health space for English speaking audience that became a unicorn last year after raising USD 88 million in a Series B—until last year had 40 million downloads of its iOS and Android apps worldwide and 1 million paying subscribers. Calm’s subscription is priced at USD 69.99.
Meditopia says that it is the most widely used and downloaded mental coach in non-English speaking markets. It has not shared details about its paying subscribers but said that its sales have grown tenfold year-on-year.
The startup works with trained professionals including therapists, psychologists, meditation experts, and writers, in each of its 75 markets to create meditation plans that are tailored to specific needs of their culture, language, or country. Its app features almost 3,000 pieces of content in 10 languages (including English) which it says is the largest collection of mindfulness and mental wellness programs offered by any platform in the world.
Mental wellness for a global community
Co-Founder Ali Murat argued that mental wellness is something everyone should be able to achieve regardless of their country of origin, native language, socio-economic status, ethnicity, or religion: “We first focused our efforts on our home country Turkey before expanding worldwide so whether you are Latino, Japanese, Russian, North American, or Arab, you can find support and coaching in our global community.”
Creandum’s Carl Fritjofsson and Highland Europe’s Fergal Mullen are joining the board of the startup as a result of investment.
This article first appeared in MENAbytes.