Japanese VC firm Lifetime Ventures has given an undisclosed amount of money to South African startup Strove to help it build out its platform.

The startup was founded in 2020 by Chris Bruchhausen in partnership with venture builder, The Delta. Strove is an activity-based mobile rewards application that empowers organisations to inspire their employees to live a healthy and active life, combating inactivity, burnout, and chronic stress. 

The platform uses activity-tracking and gamification to incentivize workforces to be their best selves, with rewards coming from over a dozen partner brands, such as Old Khaki, Poetry, Bootlegger Coffee, Mugg & Bean, Dis-Chem, Vida e Caffè, and Engen.

In July of last year, Strove closed a ZAR4 million (US$277,000) seed funding round, and it launched in the UK in April. It has now gotten a new round of funding from the Japanese VC fund Lifetime Ventures. This money will be used to speed up software development and help it build out its platform for holistic wellness. 

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“We are excited to have closed our funding round in a challenging funding environment. This raise allows us to further develop our product and service offerings as we strive towards our mission of improving the holistic wellbeing of employees around the world,” said Bruchhausen.

Strove is planning a substantial upgrade to its mental health offering, with richer content, cognitive behaviour therapy courses, and an in-app coaching feature. Other changes include adding more integrations for activity tracking, adding a recommendation engine to help personalise wellness advice, and making usability improvements all the time.

“COVID-19 has highlighted deteriorating employee wellbeing and a strong need for holistic wellbeing programmes. We see a global corporate future where most companies provide group-based employee wellbeing programmes as part of holistic employee benefits to support employees from the prevention phase. With strong C-level and execution to date, we know Strove will be a leading player in this market,” said Koshu Kunii, general partner of Lifetime Ventures.