French startup moka.care has raised a new $16 million Series A funding round (€15 million). The company is focused on mental well-being in the workplace. It offers a full-fledged service that sits in between employees and HR departments.
Left Lane Capital is leading today’s funding round. Existing investor Singular is participating once again. VC firm Origins (co-founded by Blaise Matuidi, Ilan Abehassera and Salomon Aiach) as well as Antoine Griezmann are investing in the company for the first time.
When people are feeling down, they often mention work as an ongoing issue. That’s why mental health is becoming a key issue for companies of all sizes and industries. And there are many reasons why that’s the case.
First, companies want to create a positive company culture for their employees. But buying a pool table and displaying inspirational posters on the walls simply don’t cut it. Employees want to know that they can reach out for help when they need to.
Providing moka.care as a benefit to employees means that you care about your employees’ mental well-being. It’s both a good signal and a nice perk.
Second, employees who feel engaged at work tend to be more productive and stick around longer. Making mental well-being a priority is common sense — but it also makes sense at a business level.
In some industries, such as the tech industry, it has become quite difficult to recruit new employees for specific roles. That’s why improving employee retention has become an important metric for HR departments.
The result is moka.care, a service that aims to align everyone’s interests. If you want to talk about your mental health, the most difficult step is the first step. Hence billing is based on usage, which means that the startup generates more revenue if people find the service useful and interact with it. That’s also why the startup wants to make it as easy as possible to interact with its service.
Moka.care can be used to access self-serve mental health content. But employees can also use the service for personalized care.
When employees first reach out to moka.care, the company’s team of psychologists help you understand your personal situation. The startup can send you some recommendations for practitioners that work with the platform — it can be a psychologist, a certified coach or a licensed therapist.
After that, you can talk with a mental health professional either in person or remotely. Depending on your company’s moka.care contract, some sessions will be free and you may start paying if it becomes a regular treatment.
HR departments can’t spy on their employees. But they get a dashboard with various metrics, which help them feel the pulse of the company. Moka.care also offers group sessions for managers and leaders so that they can improve their knowledge on mental well-being.
So far, 100 companies have signed up to the service, which means that 15,000 employees can access moka.care. Some clients include Spendesk, Qonto, ManoMano, RipCurl, Volcom, L’Oréal and Engie. With today’s funding round, the company plans to iterate on its product and expand to new European markets.