Virgin Pulse Completes Acquisition of Welltok, Expanding Health Engagement Capabilities for Employers, Payers and Health Systems

• Welltok’s Data and Predictive Analytics, Activation Engine and Communications Capabilities Supercharge Virgin Pulse’s Ability to Engage Hard-to-Reach Populations, including Medicare Advantage and Managed Medicaid Members

Virgin Pulse, the leading global provider of tech-enabled solutions focused on improving the health and wellbeing of its members, announced that it has completed its acquisition of Welltok, the award-winning health activation company. Combining Welltok’s activation engine with Virgin Pulse’s daily engagement platform will drive better health outcomes and cost reductions for the companies’ combined 4,100 global employer, health plan and health system clients.

“This acquisition is the culmination of years of work to establish a game-changing approach to improving health and reducing costs for employers, health plans and health systems,” said Chris Michalak, CEO of Virgin Pulse. “Combining our organizations will allow us to optimize the health of millions by keeping them continually engaged and activated, which will ultimately reduce costs for clients, members, consumers, and patients. Integrating Welltok’s personalization and analytics capabilities into Homebase for Health® will deliver exponentially more value for our clients and their respective populations. In the near term, we will be identifying quick wins out the gate for our clients and consumers, scaling existing programs and introducing a superior activation engine.”

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Virgin Pulse is widely recognized for delivering digital and live solutions that foster long-term behavior changes by engaging users in cultivating daily habits that improve outcomes across all aspects of their health and wellbeing. Welltok is known for activating people at the individual level by combining social determinants of health data with robust predictive analytics capabilities while leveraging multiple communication channels (text/SMS, email, interactive voice response (IVR) calls, social media, etc.) to maximize reach.

Welltok’s proprietary activation engine is focused on motivating consumers, employees, patients and members to complete targeted actions like participating in a mental health program, refilling a medication, or closing a gap in care. Delivering these capabilities as part of Virgin Pulse’s Homebase for Health® will create a more personalized user experience and expedite outcomes and cost savings for clients and consumers by making it easier to initiate and complete meaningful actions that improve health and wellbeing.

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With this acquisition, Virgin Pulse will introduce the industry’s first end-to-end engagement and activation platform that supports clients, members, and consumers across the entire health continuum by:

• Leveraging the industry’s most comprehensive consumer database for 275 million lives and over 1,000 predictive analytics models that target individuals with up to 90% accuracy, based on risk, receptivity and likelihood to take action via various outreach modalities. This comprehensive database is a powerful tool that can help employers, health plans and health systems generate social determinants of health insights to proactively address and reduce health disparities and close care gaps across diverse populations, including Medicare Advantage and Managed Medicaid members who are at increased risk.
• Delivering personalized, digital-first health solutions that combine technology, gamification, behavior science, live specialist support and a robust ecosystem into a unified, seamless experience to engage users in improving their health and wellbeing every day.
• Targeting activation across a broad range of individuals including employees, patients, consumers, and health plan members, including Medicare Advantage and Managed Medicaid populations, to drive tangible health outcomes through multi-channel outreach and motivating them with integrated incentives. This “surround-sound” activation, when amplified through a platform that users interact with on a daily basis, acts as an engagement multiplier and is a key driver of health and wellbeing outcomes.

Financial details of the transaction have not been disclosed. Virgin Pulse is backed by Marlin Equity Partners, a global investment firm with over $7.7 billion of capital under management. Evercore and Lazard acted as financial advisors, and Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal advisor to Virgin Pulse. UBS Securities LLC acted as financial advisor and Shearman & Sterling LLP served as legal advisor to Welltok.

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