Health and wellness should always be a priority for individuals. However, with less time and incentive to do so as time goes by, many people become less active. Paceline is a health and fintech startup that is looking to get people more motivated to work out. The company rewards its users for exercising with financial rewards — the first of its kind to do so. This new business idea has garnered significant traction and Series A funding. The capital raised by the startup will help take the idea to the next level.
How Paceline Works and Growing Popularity
Health and fintech startup Paceline works by connecting a fitness wearable such as an Apple Watch or Fitbit to the Paceline app. From there, the app logs all of the fitness and activity of a user throughout the day with the goal of reaching 150 minutes of exercise each week. If the user reaches the goal, the health and fintech startup will provide financial rewards. More specifically, if the weekly streak reaches certain points, users will be able to claim gift cards and other financial rewards that are personalized to each individual based on what they buy with their credit or debit card.
The company has begun to gain some serious momentum as well, having become business partners with several consumer-recognized names such as Gainful, Rise Brewing Company, Kind, and Home Chef. Paceline offers every business partner new customer acquisitions, a high level of engagement with the product, and data analytics and consumer insights based on the shopping habits it learns from the user. In return, the partnered company provides rewards and support to users through the app.
The addition of new business partners has come alongside the rapid growth in new users on the Paceline app. The company has already logged over 20 million workouts, over 600 million minutes of exercise, and has provided over $1.8 million worth of rewards. As the health and fintech startup continues to grow, new plans are taking place to better monetize this user base.
Paceline Funding and Future Plans
In the Series A funding round for the business, Paceline raised $29.5 million in capital. The funding round was led by Acrew Capital with participation from Mubadala Capital and existing investors from the seed round. The health and fintech startup plans to use this new funding to help further expand business operations, build up a larger user base on the Paceline app, and build more partnerships.
The largest new plan from the fintech company is the launch of its own credit card. While not yet available to the public, users of the Paceline app will soon have early access to the credit card, which will expand on the reward offered for exercising.
When commenting on the new funding round for Paceline, founder and CEO Joel Lieginger said, “As part of our overarching mission to motivate people to take care of themselves, we’re reinventing traditional financial services models and re-orienting to an approach that works in favor of our customers. With this new round of funding and support from our investors, Paceline is well equipped to become the next-generation embedded finance platform that will provide real world benefits around health and wellness.”