Framingham's Virgin Pulse To Merge With Shape Up and Global Corporate

FRAMINGHAM, MA - Virgin Pulse, a provider of employee-centric solutions that drive wellbeing, culture and productivity across organizations around the world, announced Wednesday morning has joined forces with ShapeUp and Global Corporate Challenge (GCC) to become the world’s largest, most comprehensive technology-enabled wellbeing software provider.

Together, the companies will advance Virgin Pulse’s mission to change lives and workplaces for good and accelerate the company’s growth in the $1.2 billion market for employee wellness, engagement, rewards and recognition.

With more than 5 million participants spanning 6,500 customers, 25 languages and 185 countries, and annual recurring revenue expected to exceed $100 million for 2016, this merger solidifies Virgin Pulse as the leading wellbeing software provider and partner of choice for organizations committed to building wellbeing and engagement into the DNA of their workplaces.

Virgin Pulse investors Insight Venture Partners and Virgin Group, ShapeUp investors Cue Ball and Excel Venture Management, and GCC investors will continue to support Virgin Pulse through its next phase of growth by investing significant capital into the combined entity.

“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome ShapeUp and GCC into the Virgin Pulse family,” said Virgin Pulse CEO, Chris Boyce, in a statement.

“In addition to bringing together the experience, strengths and momentum of three proven industry leaders, joining our organizations allows us to present an exciting and compelling opportunity to our collective customers and the firepower to aggressively expand into new geographies and markets,” said Boyce.

Virgin Pulse is widely recognized for delivering an engaging, technology-enabled user-experience that drives workplace health, productivity and culture by engaging employees in daily interactions designed to optimize their personal and professional wellbeing.

ShapeUp and GCC expand this value by offering both custom and out-of-the box global challenges, providing an entry point and experience on which customers can build and promote broader employee programs and initiatives.

Customers of each organization will also have the ability to connect and extend their challenge and wellbeing programs to ensure a continuous, highly personalized employee experience.

“Virgin Pulse is the perfect example of an organization that helps companies take care of their employees through innovative technology. I am delighted Virgin Pulse, ShapeUp and GCC are now joining forces to create an even stronger platform and service. This will ensure our customers can promote health and wellbeing for their people around the world,” said Virgin Group founder, Sir Richard Branson, in a statement released this morning.

“We are proud to join the Virgin Pulse family,” said ShapeUp Founder and CEO, Rajiv Kumar, M.D. “This represents a significant milestone in the 10-year history of our company and a tremendous endorsement of our people and products. We can now offer even greater value to our customers through the combination of these three industry-leading organizations,” said Branson.

As Virgin Pulse’s newly appointed President and Chief Medical Officer of the Virgin Pulse Institute, Rajiv’s responsibilities include leading the organization’s analytics team, which provides clients with cutting- edge Value-on-Investment (VOI) studies and promotes research on health, wellbeing and employee engagement.

“We are thrilled to expand our global movement with organizations that share ourvalues and passion for inspiring employees towards meaningful, sustainable health and behavior change,” said Tom Sermon, CEO of GCC, who will drive Virgin Pulse’s global expansion as President of Virgin Pulse International. “Virgin Pulse, ShapeUp and GCC each believe that engaging employees directly in improving their health can strengthen corporate cultures, build employment brands and help organizations develop high-performing organizations that drive meaningful and measurable business outcomes. Together, we can elevate that mission and amplify the message.”

Virgin Pulse, part of Sir Richard Branson’s famed Virgin Group, replenishes employees with tools that help them build better habits.

Through its award-winning platform, the Framingham-based company helps employees thrive at work and across all aspects of life. The Virgin Pulse platform is purpose built to deliver a personalized, consumer-grade user experience designed to promote health, productivity, and culture across organizations and employees.

More than 250 industry leaders representing more than 2 million employees have selected Virgin Pulse’s programs to help them support their people and drive business results.

ShapeUp, founded in 2006 and based in Providence RI, provides highly configurable, socially-focused employee health and wellbeing solutions in 25 languages to more than 800 customers and two million users worldwide, including many of the Fortune 500. ShapeUp’s market-leading challenge platform and wellbeing solutions leverage the power of social engagement, behavioral economics, and evidence-based science to allow employers of all sizes to unite their employees in a collective effort to improve health and enhance corporate culture.

GCC, based in Melbourne Australia, brings a wealth of experience and expertise in delivering localized and culturally relevant challenges and content designed to improve physical and psychological health.