JOON, the turnkey corporate wellness solution replacing one-size-fits-all perks and manual expense reporting with flexible and individualized benefits, today announced that it has raised a $2.3M Series Seed. The round was led by Alpha Edison with participation from Rock Health, Sweetgreen Co-Founder Jonathan Neman, Livongo Co-Founder Alex Bitoun, Rothy’s Co-Founder Roth Martin, Bambee HR Founder Allan Jones, Even.com CEO David Baga, Ordermark Founder and Twenty40 Ventures Partner Alex Canter, and Fitt Insider Founders Anthony and Joe Vennare.
During this past year’s pandemic-induced shift to remote work, JOON grew its customer base tenfold as workers and employers sought improved work-life balance and wellbeing. Top employers like Ordermark, Lunchbox, Hi Marley, 72andSunny, and OLIPOP now use JOON to power their wellness programs, improve employee engagement and retention, and better compete for top talent.
“Even when companies technically reimburse wellness expenses, find me an employee who enjoys jumping through the hoops of submitting a receipt for a gym membership or meditation app,” said Sebastian Elghanian, Co-Founder and CEO. “Whether they’re working from New York City or Honolulu, employees today want benefits that feel like benefits, not burdens.”
Unlike most benefits platforms that issue cards or have a restrictive list of eligible vendors, JOON works by linking to employees’ existing bank accounts and credit or debit cards. Employers can select approved categories or individual vendors, and then JOON’s algorithm and technology run in the background, seamlessly handling approvals and reimbursements.
JOON brings wellbeing categories like fitness, food, mental health, family care, and education all under one roof, giving individual employees the freedom to choose what’s meaningful to them. The significant decrease in friction enables HR teams to go from tedious programs with low engagement to dynamic programs with high engagement. The result is an 80% employee adoption rate, whereas the industry average is 10%.
“We are entering a post-Covid world where employees are decentralized and mental and physical health has never been more important,” said Jonathan Shooshani, Co-Founder and President. “We believe JOON can be a key part of any company’s benefits package regardless of size, industry, or location to further employees’ well-being and employers’ retention efforts. Based on our initial investors, you can see that some of the leading wellness and lifestyle brands also believe in the promise of our mission and strength of our product offering.”
JOON intends to use the seed funding to expand its platform to offer a more enhanced reporting suite for HR teams and further personalize the experience to help employees align their benefits with their personal and professional goals. The company already offers discounts and incentives at select vendors and is increasingly becoming a launchpad for brands to build awareness amongst wellness focused consumers.
“In the last year, we’ve learned that existing benefit systems were designed for employers rather than employees,” said Britt Danneman, Partner at Alpha Edison. “With JOON, employers can break the existing tradeoffs to offer benefits that are actually easy to use and also hyper personalized. JOON’s solution unlocks a new market for products and services around wellness that are only possible when this alignment exists between employers and employees.”
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