LifeGuides, a Tempe company that runs a coaching and guidance platform, found tailwinds during the Covid-19 pandemic and the company has since raised millions in outside financing to fuel its next stage of growth.
LifeGuides is a web platform that virtually connects people with pre-screened “guides,” who can help users deal with stress, family life, identity, finding purpose and other challenges that life dishes out.
The sessions are somewhere between a therapy session and calling a friend for advice; Guides on the platform have a wide array of experiences and expertise, and all must complete training before taking appointments.
LifeGuides currently sells access to its platform to large employers which offer it as a benefit to employees; LifeGuides counts Kaiser Permanente and DriveTime as two of its larger clients in the Valley.
The company is working toward raising $15 million in series A financing, $12.5 million of which has already been committed, LifeGuides CEO Derek Lundsten said.
LifeGuides was founded in 2017 by Mark Donohue, who currently serves as the company’s executive chairman. Lundsten took over as CEO in January 2020 and in the months since, many employers have placed a new value on maintaining their workforce's mental health.
“The pandemic, in many ways, accelerated people's desire for connection,” Lundsten said. “A bunch of major trends around remote work, around well-being, around mental health, around the sharing economy and conscious capitalism and we're right in the convergence of all of those major themes.”
The company currently has about 400 guides contracted to work on its platform and about 20 full-time employees. The latest fundraising will help LifeGuides hire more people, expand its sales and marketing efforts and eventually start offering services internationally.
LifeGuides has previously raised more than $5 million in outside financing, including some from Lundsten who was previously an investor and board member before stepping in as CEO.
The latest funding round is led by North Shore Venture Partners, a return investor, with participation from Will Bunker, another return investor that previously founded One & Only, a dating website that sold to Match.com in 1999.
Lundsten said the company is hitting its stride now in 2022 as it works toward its lofty goal of serving 1 billion people over the next 15 years.
“We're selling hope, in many ways,” he said. “What LifeGuides is doing is giving people the opportunity to connect with someone who will help them on their path… it’s a purposeful mission.”
