Peerfit gets $18M from Virgo Investment
Virgo Investment Group has committed $18 million to Peerfit, a Tampa-based digital health company.
The funding from the San Francisco-based investment group will help Peerfit expand its core brand and move into the Medicare Advantage space, a news release said.
Pooja Goel, managing director of Virgo Investment, will join the board of directors of Peerfit. She will be the first woman on the Peerfit board and will largely focus on the new Medicare Advantage product, Peerfit Move.
The expansion into the Medicare space will be a shift for Peerfit, which has historically connected employers and their employees to fitness studios and gyms through their insurance carrier or self-funded wellness plans under the tagline, “redefine wellness at work.”
“Peerfit has identified a unique need in the employer wellness and Medicare space, building an offering that appeals to employees, seniors, employers, and health plans,” Goel said in the news release. “Peerfit’s culture immediately aligned with ours and they share a similar belief in raising reputational capital; creating a partnership where we can disrupt and innovate. We are proud to partner with Peerfit and look forward to supporting their growth in every way possible.”
Peerfit Move “has been the buzz of health plans coast to coast,” said Ed Buckley III, Peerfit’s chairman and CEO. Health plans of all sizes and in all markets have expressed interest and he expects to announce which plans will offer Peerfit Move in the next 90 days.
Ed Buckley is CEO of Peerfit.
Goel will be an asset to the Peerfit board, Buckley said.
“We look forward to learning from her insight and experience, especially as we continue to evolve and move Peerfit into the Medicare Advantage space,” Buckley said. “The whole Virgo team has been seamless to work with and we are excited to see where this partnership takes us.”
Virgo Investment, based in San Francisco, partners with founder-led and family-owned companies to build and grow transformative and industry-leading businesses.
The $18 million investment opens Peerfit’s Series C funding round. There’s always strong interest with Peerfit opens a funding round, Buckley said.
Buckley was introduced to the principals at Virgo in Tampa about a year ago, and since then they’ve met several times in New York and elsewhere. Virgo has helped Peerfit with strategic introductions and is a good culture match, Buckley said.
“I can’t say with certainty that Virgo will be the only group we get involved with this year … but we knew going into a capital raise they would be the first group we would call because of how helpful they would be to us,” Buckley said.
In September, Peerfit got $8 million in funding in a round led by Causeway Media Partners. At that time, Causeway’s co-founder, Wyc Grousbeck, owner of the Boston Celtics, joined the Peerfit board.
