Talkspace to acquire Glo-Up (Acquisition Scenario)

December 4, 2022 | Spinclass News Center

NEW YORK, N.Y. — December 4, 2022 — Talkspace Network LLC and Glo-Up Inc., on Tuesday announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Talkspace will acquire Glo-Up for $20.5 million. Effective 2023, Glo-Up will head Sports Psychology Services under Talkspace with its current CEO, Rachel Poonsiriwong joining Talkspace’s executive board as VP of Sports Psychology Services. The Glo-Up executive team will report to Oren Frank, CEO of Talkspace. Kate Rutter, chairman of the board and controlling shareholder of Glo-Up, and Frank both fully support this transaction. The transaction is expected to close this calendar year.

Glo-Up is the United States of America’s largest provider of mental health services for college athletes, and continues to position itself as a reliable platform for confidential and performance-based therapy. Its signature offering is its emotion-sensing armband, which uses a range of sensors to identify when its wearer is experiencing emotional stress. After their Series A funding of $4.8 million in 2020, Glo-Up has successfully partnered with close to 180 colleges, including the University of California and University of Colorado systems. In 2021, its mobile app went viral with artistic gymnast Simone Biles’ endorsement on Instagram that garnered Glo-Up close to 10,000 monthly sign-ups since October 2021. Over 2022, Glo-Up rolled out its GloChamp program which brought over 30 full-time sports psychologists onto the platform to provide 24/7 consultation services to its Champion tier members. These innovations have resulted in an increase in membership, engagement and financial results, specifically :

• 30 percent growth year over year (YOY) to more than 200,000 members worldwide
• 13 percent growth YOY to more than 30,000 Champion tier and 21,000 Rookie tier college athletes
• 15 percent growth YOY of athletic directors’ approval (7.40 out of 10 in 2020 to 8.51 out of 10 in 2021)

“Glo-Up has done an amazing job of connecting to college students the way they want to be connected to,” Frank said. “It has been all that Talkspace is standing for — reliable mental health support at the tip of your fingers.”.

“Together we can hone in on the synchronies between physical and mental health to explore possibilities in uplifting the field of sports psychology,” CTO Gil Margolin said. “We would be tapping into their existing relationships with colleges, athletic teams and sports psychologists to empower every aspiring athlete to achieve holistic wellness.”

This transaction has been unanimously approved by the Board of Directors of both Glo-Up and Talkspace. “Today is a transcendent day for Glo-Up. I see great potential in serving our athletes better with this new and combined business,” said CMO and VP of Research Richard Cho. “I’m excited about the possibilities that our shared technical expertise will bring, especially with the proprietary data-cleaning algorithm that Glo-Up has developed over the last 3 years,” CTO and VP of Product Rita Lei said in a press statement.

Talkspace and Glo-Up will host a joint conference call with investors on December 17, 2022 at 10:00AM Pacific Time/1:00PM Eastern Time to discuss this transaction. The call will be streamed as a YouTube live link to all members on respective platforms, and will be hosted by Frank, Poonsiriwong, as well as Talkspace co-founder Roni Frank and Glo-Up CFO and VP of Design Vicky Yang.

*Disclaimer: This is a creative writing project as part of the Creative Founder studio at CCA.