Text | Guo Jiajia Editor | Dong Jie
36Kr learned that mental health brand FLOW Meditation recently completed a multi-million dollar angel round of financing. This round of financing is jointly led by Evolve Ventures and Lightspeed China, and the funds will be used for app upgrade research and development, content curriculum development, talent introduction, and branding and marketing promotion.
The FLOW project was launched in 2021 and has now launched the FLOW Meditation APP and WeChat Mini Program for IOS and Android. The online section of FLOW offers introductory and advanced meditation courses, with online audio and video content for different scenarios on topics such as emotional management, anxiety relief, improved sleep, sound healing, yoga extension, and more. The community is also a synchronous development business of FLOW online, encouraging users to share spontaneously in the form of meditation logs, theme group discussions, etc.
FLOW Meditation WeChat Mini Program/APP
Connecting online and offline is the focus of FLOW's operations. Founder Wu Jun told 36Kr that FLOW has held more than 30 offline events, established cooperation with brands including Banyan Tree, Kerry Centre, China Resources, ON AngPao, L'Oréal, NIO, Well and WeWork, and began to establish links at the membership level. In the near future, FLOW will also cooperate with BrainCo, a wearable device for brainwave detection, and Magic Mirror Film, a home scene fitness brand, to popularize and promote the mental health method of meditation.
Similar to the sports and fitness industry, the mental health industry is a non-clinical, non-disease mental health solution outside the public health system. This ancient wisdom from the East has swept overseas markets in the past 10 years under the impetus of opinion leaders such as Apple founder Steve Jobs, Bridgewater Fund founder Dalio, basketball stars Kobe Bryant and James. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of meditators in the U.S. has more than tripled between 2012 and 2017, and more than 30 million people are now practicing, surpassing the number of yoga practitioners.
In Wu Zhan's view, meditation is not just meditation and meditation, but a broader brain movement that trains awareness, is a lifestyle that pays attention to the heart, can be integrated into all aspects of life, and can be practiced when walking, running, and eating. Flow also provides content that balances the body and mind such as sleep music and music therapy yoga.
Calm and Headspace are two leading meditation apps in the European and American markets, which have reached a valuation of $2 billion and have a total of 50 million+ downloads and 5 million paying users. Wu Jun told 36Kr that the mental health APP market has begun to saturate in the United States, about 1,000 models, and this track is almost blank in China, but the growth trend of the meditation industry is like the running industry in the 80s and yoga sports 20 years ago, and there is a big market in China in the future.
According to the Epidemiological Survey Report on Mental Disorders in China, the prevalence of anxiety disorders in adults in China is the highest, and more and more young people are plagued by anxiety and depression. Mental health issues have become a public crisis that cannot be ignored, and meditation promises to be a low-cost and effective mental health solution.
Meditation site diagram
The current market situation determines the focus of FLOW's playing style on the B and C ends. On the C side, for target users in the 20-45 age group, FLOW's focus is to help learn meditation and physical fitness exercises, and develop meditation habits, and every morning at 7 o'clock, FLOW will push a 10-minute "Daily FLOW" project.
On the B side, THE IDEA OF FLOW is to develop enterprise users. According to Wu Zhan, 70% of the Fortune 500 companies in the United States have provided meditation exercises for employees, and many Silicon Valley companies are standard, such as Google, Apple, P&G and so on. This provides a new growth logic for FLOW, that is, to first deeply serve a part of KA customers on the B-side, and then expand customers with the enterprise as the core and quickly complete market education.
The investment logic of this round of financing:
Han Yan, founding partner of Lightspeed China, said: "With the rapid development of society and the faster pace of work and life, people call for peace of mind from the bottom of their hearts, which provides suitable soil and opportunities for the birth and development of the meditation market. We see THAT FLOW, as an excellent team deeply engaged in this field, provides a platform for Chinese users to enter and communicate with the community, and is promoting the revival of this oriental culture and wisdom. Lightspeed Capital is also an institutional investor in Calm, a leading U.S. meditation company, and led its last $75 million round of funding.
Shao Yibo, founder of Evolve Ventures, said: "I have known Wu Zhan for many years and am delighted to be the first to support him because he benefits from meditation. FLOW combines the ancient wisdom of the East with modern brain science, and believes that it will benefit many people and work, live and grow happier. Evolve Ventures has also been focusing on social value investment and mental health, with multiple investment projects in the United States and China, and Shao Yibo is also the chairman of Insight Timer, a star american meditation company.