Meditation star-tup Meditopia announced a Series A investment of $15 million in funding co-led by Creandum and Highland Europe to continue its growth drive.
WHO: The start-up was founded by Fatih Celebi, Berk Yilmaz, and Ali Murat Ceylan in 2015, launching the app in 2017. Meditopia is the most-downloaded meditation app in non-English-speaking markets, competing with leaders like Calm and Headspace. Meditopia’s unique selling point has been its localization for 75 global markets, in 10 languages, with a focus on long-term mental well-being programs. In a world in which English has for some become something of a questionable lingua franca in tech, that’s helped it stand out and pick up more users and gain scale.
WHY: Meditopia will use the new investment on localization, which includes finding local professionals and understanding the culture and needs of the market—the backbone of the app—as well as on engineering capacity and scaling the company.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS: In a statement, Murat said: “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.”
Carl Fritjofsson, partner at Creandum, commented: “We’ve followed Meditopia for the past two years and have been incredibly impressed by how they’ve been able to capture this opportunity across the world, all while being one of the most capital-efficient run companies around.”
Fergal Mullen, founding partner at Highland Europe, said: “For too long, the technology available was created for English-speaking groups alone. Meditopia provides the alternative; a solution that helps its members get to the heart of what they need in a way that suits them. We’re thrilled to be a part of getting this vital service to those people.”
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