French startup Teale secures €10m to become the European leader in mental health

Parisian Digital mental health platform Teale, has raised €10 million second round of funding in Series A, to provide mental health benefits to employees and employers, promoting workplace well-being.

This round of funding came from Alter Equity (Fanny Picard), the Digital Venture fund of Bpifrance (Véronique Jacq), followed by ISAI and Evolem, historic funds. This fundraising is an important signal in Europe where funding for the mental health sector is far behind that of the Anglo-Saxon countries, and the 7 unicorns of the United States.

Mental health problems cost companies €3,000 per employee per year on average in France. Teale was created to help companies meet this challenge because a team that prioritizes the well-being of its employees is also a healthier company. Two years after its launch, teale is recruiting and aims to conquer Europe.

In March 2023, 44% of employees reported being in psychological distress and 28% were burned out. Today, mental health costs companies on average €3,000 per year per employee , due to “presenteeism”, turnover, and absenteeism. Mental health has also become a major expectation of employees: 91% of them consider that the corporate culture must support their mental health, and 68% of “millennials” (30-45 years old) have left their job for reasons related to their mental health.

Founded in 2021 by Julia Néel Biz, Geoffroy Verzat, Nicolas Merlaud and Gilles Rasigade, teale is the first mental health platform dedicated to employees . Its mission is to democratize this subject so that taking care of one's mental health is accessible to everyone, in an uninhibited, preventive and personalized way, and to thus build healthy organizations. 

Teale puts technology and cognitive and behavioral sciences at the service of people and organizations to engage and support employees through personalized individual support and transform corporate culture and prevent risks through collective support.

Julia Néel Biz, CEO Co-founder, teale: “Two years ago, when we carried out our first fundraising, the question arose as to whether the company had any interest in taking this subject into consideration. Today we are witnessing a tremendous awareness: business leaders are wondering how best to deal with this subject. Since the wave of Covid-19, the potential of this market has grown considerably and companies have no choice but to take the subject into account. Today, the company has an important role to play in the well-being of its teams, at all levels of hierarchy. Moreover, 90% of employees believe that their company should do more to combat stress, workload, harassment. And 78% of HR in France consider mental health as a strategic priority.''

After a first fundraising of €2 million in May 2021, teale completes this 2nd round of financing with Alter Equity, the pioneering impact fund led by Fanny Picard, and Bpifrance via its Digital Venture fund led by Véronique Jacq , followed by ISAI and Evolem, teale's historic funds. More than 100 clients have chosen to offer teale services to their teams, representing more than 500,000 employees. The startup brought together around a hundred qualified and experienced psychologists and psychiatrists.

Thanks to this new financing and its model based on Tech that can be replicated abroad, teale will be able to develop its solution and go beyond borders. Its objective is to create a real leader in this field and to help employees and managers of European companies achieve greater well-being. The company particularly wishes to strengthen its teams by increasing from 20 to 80 employees by 2024.

Teale has developed a global solution for companies and was the first French player to launch a technological application. By ensuring, from the outset, to encrypt all its data for total confidentiality between the employer and the employee and itself.  Thanks to the data and its algorithms, the company can identify weak signals upstream on a dashboard, and set up relevant preventive actions with the intervention of teale partner psychologists (conferences, workshops, round tables, training) ..

Its 60 digital programs and more than 1,000 content (videos, audios, etc.) cover all areas (professional and personal), such as stress management, sleep, caregivers, relationship difficulties in the workplace, bereavement, infertility, and of course burnout prevention. These programs are built with the network of over 100 experts, who are also available for one-on-one sessions.

In two years, teale has created the world's largest library of self-therapy and the largest database in the field of mental health, by measuring all the needs of employees but also the impact of what teale brings them (anonymized questionnaires).

www.teale.io