On-demand coaching platform TaskHuman takes $20M

TaskHuman has a network of over 1,000 coaches across nearly 50 countries

As we come out of the pandemic, we are dealing with a few major changes to how we live and, more specifically, how we work. Thanks to the so-called "Great Resignation," businesses need find new ways to serve their existing employees, and to get the best people to join their organizations, offering them unique benefits. 

One of those benefits is digital coaching platform TaskHuman, which automatically connects employees to live hundreds of live coaches via video call, within minutes, when and where they already are.  

On Thursday, the company announced a $20 million Series B round of funding led by Madrona, with participation from Impact Venture Capital, RingCentral Ventures, Sure Ventures, and USVP, alongside new investors Gaingels, PeopleTech Angels, Propel(x), and Zoom Ventures. Participating angel investors also include Hemant Thapar and Margo Georgiades.

This latest funding follows a $9.5 million round in November 2021, and brings TaskHuman’s total raised to-date to $35 million.

"TaskHuman's 1:1 coaching has been game changing for the consumers and providers around the world and we’re growing pretty fast. In a global recessionary environment with all the stressors that employees/consumers go through in their daily work and personal, we recognize the unique position we are in to accelerate our mission of bringing TaskHuman help to consumers globally," Ravi Swaminathan, co-founder and CEO of TaskHuman, told VatorNews.

"We felt that raising additional capital will help us reach and serve even more employees and their families around the world."

To use TaskHuman, users just have to download the app, and search for whatever they need help with, which can be anything from "I want to lose weight" to "I want to manage my stress level," to "I lost my dad recently and I don't know how to cope with that." The app will then connect the user to the appropriate coach, which can be be a fitness instructor, a marriage therapist, or a grief counselor. The company currently has over 1,000 coaches in 50 different countries and can be accessed 24/7 for over 1,000 different topics. The user just taps on a coach and they go on a video call with them instantly.

The app is also organized by availability, so it's not just a directory of people that users can eventually call, but instead it acts a real-time platform where users are seeing the real-time availability of the coaches.

In addition to getting users connected quickly, TaskHuman is also intended to help foster long-term relationships between coaches and users in those areas where it's appropriate; for example, if someone begins using a marriage counselor, they would likely need to come back for sessions on a weekly basis. To do so, all users have to do is go to the reconnect screen on the app.

Right now, TaskHuman is offered in two ways: either as a benefit to employees, or it can be purchased by individuals who can sign up on their own. For companies who sign up, their employees get full, unlimited free access to the platform. In the case of individuals signing up, they typically pay $1 per minute on the app, which they can then divide between any specialist on the platform.

"As a proof point to the TaskHuman user experience, companies see an average of over 60% global employee engagement when they launch TaskHuman. On average, TaskHuman users rate their personalized in-app experience 4.89 out of 5," said Swaminathan.

The company grew its ARR by more than 5X year-over-year, and its customers now include Zoom Video Communications, Dr. Scholl’s, Finastra, Medidata, Purdue University, and RingCentral.

The new funding will be used for product development, as well as to build out its team; TaskHuman has over 100 full-time team members and more than 1,000 coaches around the world across nearly 50 different countries. With this funding round, TaskHuman will continue to add investments across every function in the company including marketing, sales, engineering, and product.

"We are already the most comprehensive coaching platform in the world. We expect to one day become like Google for people. When you want articles and videos, you have Google. When you want to connect instantly to real live people for any topic you want, we hope to become that platform!" said Swaminathan.