Meditation and sleep app Calm acquires health tech startup Ripple Health Group; appoints a new co-CEO

Daniel Levi Posted On February 2, 2022

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Calm, the #1 meditation and sleep app, announced Wednesday it has acquired health technology startup Ripple Health Group. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. As part of the acquisition agreement, Ripple’s CEO David Ko will now serve as Calm’s co-CEO alongside Calm co-founder Michael Acton Smith.

Ripple is also a San Francisco-based startup. It was founded in 2019 by Anastasios Kasiolas, David Ko, and Rhett Woods to bring physical, mental, and social help to every person. Ripple works to connect people with proper health care.

Upon the acquisition, the Ripple team will focus on building Calm Health, a suite of services designed to support mental health across the care spectrum that will replace Calm’s current employer offering, Calm for Business.

We covered Calm three years ago after the relaxation app startup raised $27 million in Series B funding to continue to expand operations and its business reach, even offline. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Today, Calm is now valued at $2 billion after its December fundraise.

Founded in 2012 by Michael Acton Smith and Alex Tew, Calm provides an app for sleep, meditation, and relaxation, available in both the App Store and Google Play store. It has had over 60 million downloads. It creates audio content that strengthens mental fitness and tackles some of the biggest mental health challenges of today: stress, anxiety, insomnia, and depression. Calm currently offers some free services, but others are limited to paid subscribers.

In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, Smith said: “Expanding into Calm Health and the health care space will allow us to reach many, many more people and make service available at different price points.” Smith added that their goal was to destigmatize mental health and address the global mental health crisis.

“We’re just getting started,” he said. “Combining with Ripple will allow us to grow a lot quicker and reach more people.”