London-based Fika, a platform that seeks to promote ‘mental fitness’ has raised £1.2 million in funding to develop its model as a proactive mental wellness tool for businesses and their employees. The funding was led by Rising Stars, with a syndicate of ten UK and US-based angel investors, including Biogen board member Brian Posner and NCFE CEO David Gallagher, who will both join Fika’s board.
Why Fika is different
The employee assistance programme (EAP) marketplace is crowded, and growing awareness of mental health has led to the creation of several mental health and wellbeing platforms. Fika, however, takes a different approach.
Traditional EAP programmes focus on recovery. In practice, employees will use them only after suffering an adverse event. The consequences of this are enormous. Co-founder Nick Bennett told UKTN it meant that many people did not get the help they need. “The EAP systems are in place for then they’ve hit the bottom, and you only get, on average, 8-10% usage,” he said. The consequence is that poor mental health has a huge business cost. Instead, Fika’s mission is to give ‘mental fitness’ the same level of awareness as ‘physical fitness’. ...