Meditation app startup lands $2 billion valuation in Series C round

Meditation app startup Calm has scored a $2 billion valuation with its Series C financing round, the company said Tuesday.

San Francisco-based Calm raised $75 million in the Series C round, bringing its total funding to date to $217 million.

Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round, with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, TPG, Insight Venture Partners and funds managed by Goldman Sachs Asset Management also participating.

Calm plans to expand its presence in wellness at work programs. The company’s enterprise unit, Calm for Business, serves more than 10 million people through its employer partnerships.

Its Calm for Businesses offers meditation, training and body stretching apps that aim to improve employees’ stress and anxiety levels, sleep and mindfulness.

Calm’s enterprise offering has posted a 25% adoption rate among customers’ employees and a 75% engagement level for those employees who use the app, Calm said.

“We’ve only just begun supporting companies on their journey to increase employee resilience,” CEO Alex Tew said in a statement. “This financing round will advance our efforts in building a strong global workforce, meeting overwhelming market demand. Our Calm for Business expansion is a priority as employer investment in mental health skyrockets.”

With a large swath of the nation’s employee base working from home as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, two in five Americans are suffering from mental health issues, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Calm said its daily download rate doubled this year over last year.

Calm has 4 million paying customers and its total downloads have soared to over 100 million since the company’s founding in 2012. The startup has been profitable since 2016.  

In addition to delving deeper into attracting more employers to its Calm for Business offering, the startup also is seeking greater growth in the Asia-Pacific region. It added Japanese as its seventh language to its app this month.

"We’ve greatly expanded our audio library in recent years to support and strengthen mental wellness through meditation, music, wisdom and sleep,” Michael Acton Smith, co-founder and co-CEO at Calm, said in a statement. “Calm’s unique content has helped transform many lives.”