Better care in life’s most important stages: Our investment in Peppy
By: Felix Capital
Tags: Fertility, Parenthood, Menopause, Digital Health, Startup

Felix capital leads Series A round to accelerate Peppy’s mission to become a leading digital health platform, supporting employees in life’s most important stages

Health and wellness is at the heart of our investment strategy at Felix. With “aspiration for a better life” as one of our key themes, we’re drawn to propositions that change consumers’ interactions with our healthcare systems and providers, where there’s an opportunity to build meaningful communities and brands around health. This has led to our investments in companies such as Peloton (vertically integrated fitness and wellness platform), Unmind (workplace mental health platform), Urban (on demand wellness services) and others.

Over the years, we’ve been closely tracking a number of trends within healthcare, first the increasing digitisation of the industry, as the demand for more convenient ways to access care and support has grown, which has been further accelerated by COVID-19. These changes are important for consumers, but also companies, who are increasingly recognising the importance of offering benefits that create more accessible, higher quality care for employees, in turn boosting morale, productivity, and retention. Second, the increasing “verticalisation” of healthcare, with personalised platforms taking a much tailored approach to treat specific conditions (and illustrated at scale by companies such as Livongo, Noom etc.)

Enter Peppy, a London-based digital health platform with the mission to provide millions of people with expert, caring support during life’s most challenging stages. Beginning with the focus areas of menopause, fertility, and early parenthood, Peppy provides tailored, expert-led support to individuals going through important life and family events. By offering users access to highly-qualified expert practitioners through chats, video consultations, as well as digital content and community events, Peppy is bridging the gap between online searches and hard-to-access clinical care. Peppy’s combination of high-touch clinical support, and scalable digital platform, means that they can offer a truly affordable healthcare product, democratising access to potentially millions of employees.

We first came across Peppy as users ourselves — and our individual experience with the platform was just the first indication that this team is building something truly life-changing. When we dug in more — understanding the impact that Peppy has had on existing users, as well as the team’s large vision and ambition to solve some of the biggest gaps in healthcare — we knew we wanted to be part of this journey.

We’re thrilled that Peppy has chosen Felix as partners, and to announce our investment in Peppy’s $10m Series A, alongside Outward VC, Seedcamp, and Hambro Perks.

The need for better, more personalised care

Just two examples of recent headlines on the overlooked areas of menopause and fertility

Over the last few years we have witnessed accelerated growth of on-demand, digital therapeutics and tele-medicine. Consumers’ desire for increased convenience and on-demand services, combined with mass adoption of smartphones, and regulatory shifts have laid the foundation for the rise in virtual appointments and digital therapeutics. The global digital health market is massive and growing — currently estimated at $100bn, the market is expected to grow 6x over the next five years. This trend has been further cemented by COVID-19 as previously face-to-face doctor consultations transitioned remotely overnight during the pandemic (tele-health appointments grew 38x!), and clinicians acceptance of digital platforms leapfrogged.

Meanwhile, some of the biggest gaps in healthcare occur in some of the most ubiquitous and significant life stages of consumers. For example, menopause, fertility, pregnancy, and early parenthood are transitions that affect almost 100% of people (and employee) populations, but are traditionally some of the most difficult health topics to get proper information and specialist care for. For example, while virtually all women experience some menopausal symptoms, 73% of women surveyed have not treated them, and 32% of women surveyed said they feel their doctor is not comfortable talking about menopause. The Peppy team realises that a “one size fits all” healthcare approach doesn’t work for these different needs and has instead created verticalised programs with different clinicians, content and communities for each area.

The Peppy team isn’t content with just solving these critical life stages however — they have kept their ear to the ground continuously gathering customer and user feedback and have already identified a number of additional life stages to help support on their ambitious roadmap!

Employees as consumers and the workplace as a community

Key to Peppy’s ability to plug gaps in the existing healthcare market is through their B2B2C approach, enabling companies and private medical insurers to offer important care and support to their employees during critical, life-changing moments, where there is not only a large gap in care from existing healthcare providers, but also a high risk of employee dropout (as an example, 45% of menopausal women surveyed have considered taking a break from work due to their symptoms, and only 28% of women are in full time work after becoming mothers).

One of our key themes at Felix is the framing of “the employee as a consumer”. As our working and personal lives become ever-more integrated, and the quality and accessibility of consumer tools and services rises, we increasingly expect and demand a higher quality from the tools we use in the professional realm as well. Simply put, workplace tools are held to a higher standard than ever. Says Peppy, “Employers are learning that providing remote, inclusive support for the individual is key.”

In all our investments, we look for signs of customer love, and this could not be clearer in Peppy! Unique for a B2B healthcare provider, they have a 4.8/5.0 rating on Trustpilot and through extensive conversations with HR managers and existing Peppy clients, we were able to see firsthand the impact that Peppy has on workplace wellbeing. Users told us verbatim that “Peppy is a lifesaver” and feedback collected showed that 90% of users felt more positive about their employer after using Peppy. Importantly, through connecting individuals going through similar life challenges through community events and group chats, Peppy has made their users feel less alone.

Peppy proudly supports a diverse, growing customer base, ranging from magic circle law firms (Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance), to banks (BNP Paribas, Santander), to retailers (DFS, Wickes), to public sector employers (the University of Sheffield) and even healthcare insurers and providers themselves (including NHS Trusts, Aviva and Vitality Health). Most importantly, Peppy support is available to all employees, from entry level to the C-suite.

Team on a mission

Peppy founders Evan, Mridula and Max

At Felix, we love founders who relate closely to their company’s mission and it was clear from our very first interaction that Mridula, Max and Evan were authentically driven to start Peppy. Not only do the founders all have deep experience in the healthcare industry, but have each gone through their own personal struggles with fertility and parenthood, and realised the chasm in accessible care. Critically, the founders recognise how important it is to build a first class clinical team and have brought on board some of the UK’s most senior thought leaders in their areas including Kathy Abernethy, Director of Menopause Services who was previously the Chair of the British Menopause Society, and a renowned author and researcher.

We are thrilled to join the Peppy team on their journey to bring better, more accessible care to millions of people!