Ifeel raises €10 million to help employers look after their workers' wellbeing

Madrid-based emotional wellbeing service ifeel has raised €10 million from investors led by UNIQA Ventures, the venture capital arm of UNIQA Insurance Group.

ifeel has developed a digital emotional wellbeing service with the aim of enhancing access to occupational mental health care, through partnership deals with health insurers and providers of employee benefits.

The service provides feedback to employers through the use of artificial intelligence and data analytics based on clinical research, giving HR a clearer picture of each worker's frame of mind.

In addition, ifeel has introduced an emotional wellbeing index with the help of University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Carol Ryff, who is renowned for inventing modern psychology's "Ryff" scale for measuring the state of our mental health.

The funding round was held at series A stage, and brings ifeel's total raised to €18 million. ifeel will use the money to bolster sales capabilities and home in on its business model, entering new markets and product offerings.

Aside from UNIQA Ventures, ifeel's series A round was also backed by Nauta Capital and undisclosed "other" investors. Its wellbeing service covers 23 countries and is staffed by some 600 psychologists, trained in a variety of therapeutic disciplines.

Amir Kaplan, CEO of ifeel, said: "From this point on, our goal is to help companies integrate this mindset into their corporate culture."

Money has poured into European startups promoting mental health in the workplace. Last February, the Portuguese-Brazilian mental wellness app Zenklub collected €7 million for its platform, which targets both direct-to-consumer and corporate segments.

The Parisian startup Moka.care and a Berlin and Munich-based competitor, nilo.health, raised funding in the space of a few weeks. In May 2022, the companies raised €15 million and $8 million respectively.

A swiss insurtech startup, grape, continued the trend in July with a €1.7 million raise. Rather than focus on employee insurance solely, grape is now directly investing into prevention services like online therapy, with mental healthcare offered as a benefit on top of its insurance policies and HR software workflows.