SoftBank Group Corp invests in Betterfly. It is a major investor in the Latin American startup scene. Recently, it has made its first investment into a Chile-based health company, Betterfly. It was worth a $60 million funding round.
More on the investment of SoftBank into Betterfly and the company itself
However, many other bigshots were present in the round. Including DST Global, QED Investors, Valor Capital, and Endeavor Catalyst. This round now values Betterfly at $300 million.
Betterfly describes itself as an insurance technology or “insurtech” company. More specifically, it is a digital benefits platform for companies. They reward their employees for healthy habits with life insurance. This insurance grows at no cost and they have the option of donating it to different causes. Other benefits include telemedicine, mental health, exercise programs, nutrition advice, and financial education.
The Santiago-based company has more than 300 firms as its customers. It charges 2,990 pesos (about $4) per company employee that joins the program, said the CEO, Eduardo Della Magiora.
As companies pay more attention to the wellbeing of their employees after the coronavirus outbreak, consequently, the company has shown strong growth. Betterfly began with 20 employees and now it has 130 and growing.
Future plans with the investment
After Softbank invests in Betterfly, in recent months, Betterfly has been working on international expansion and plans to use the funds to finance its growth beyond Chile.
We already have our country officer for Brazil in Rio de Janeiro building our team and preparing our launch in a few months. We will be moving our headquarters to Miami, which we believe is the perfect innovation hub to land and expand across Latin America.
Eduardo Della Magiora, CEO, Betterfly
Betterfly raised $18 million in December in its Series A funding round, which was then led by QED. So far Softbank’s Latin America Fund has invested in Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.
Della Magiora said he’s not too concerned about when it may reach the iconic “unicorn” status, of startups valued above $1 billion.
“With the speed at which we’re growing and the massive opportunity we see across the region, I think this may happen sooner, rather than later,” he said.
