LifeSpeak, a mental health and total well-being platform working with employers, health plans and insurance companies, announced Monday (Feb. 14) that it has signed on to buy Wellbeats for $92.5 million.
Wellbeats is a Minnesota-based company that provides Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based physical well-being services.
The acquisition will reportedly jumpstart LifeSpeak’s ability to meet growing demand from organizations for a comprehensive, single-vendor solution to support mental and physical health.
“Both Wellbeats and LifeSpeak are category leaders with impressive global partners and clients, and this partnership will accelerate our combined growth dramatically,” Jason Von Bank, Wellbeats president and CEO, said in the announcement. “We are excited to be part of the LifeSpeak family and look forward to continuing to deliver on our mission for our clients, their employees, and shareholders.”
Meanwhile, LifeSpeak CEO Michael Held said the acquisition “significantly expands and diversifies the SaaS-based behavioral health and physical wellbeing solutions LifeSpeak can offer its customers and partners.”
“Many organizations have expressed a strong desire to streamline their wellbeing support to a smaller number of proven brands focusing on longer-term, preventive solutions,” Held said in the release. “This makes the addition of Wellbeats highly complementary to LifeSpeak’s growing lineup of digital health offerings and allows us to further extend our offering to new enterprise and embedded solutions clients.”
According to the release, there’s a need for effective corporate wellness solutions, which comes as there’s more expectations for employers to provide more support for employees. Corporate wellness is reportedly going to reach a market of $58.4 billion by 2025.
Earlier this month, PYMNTS reported that more demographic groups have been seeing higher medical costs, which has scared them into delaying necessary treatments.
Read more: New Financing Options Help Patients, Practices Manage Rising Healthcare Costs
Per the report, physicians are now seeing more patients as in-person doctors visits resume. However, there’s still the issue of affordability, with specialized lending products working to fill the gap between what the insurance pays and out-of-pocket copays, deductibles and uncovered treatment balances.