• UAE-based health and corporate wellness platform STEPPI has raised $1.8 million in its latest funding round, led by Embody Fitness, whose founders James Miller and Sharare Hau joined the STEPPI management team as CEO and CCO respectively.
• Founded in 2020 by Milos Savic and Joe Franklin, The STEPPI platform primarily caters to corporates, offering a wide range of employee engagement activities and wellness-focused challenges with attractive rewards.
• STEPPI looks to serve one million employees to be more active by 2025. The new capital raised will allow STEPPI to expand its offerings to include nutrition, physical training and activity programmes, stress management, and community engagement.

Press release

The UAE-based health and corporate wellness platform STEPPI has successfully raised $1.8M in its latest funding round, powered by a new partnership with boutique health and fitness experts, Embody Fitness, based in London and Dubai. The round welcomes Embody Fitness  founders, James Miller and Sharare Hau to the STEPPI management team as CEO and CCO respectively, and opens new possibilities for corporate wellness in the UAE. 

Launched in 2020, The STEPPI platform creates an uplifting experience for corporate health and wellness goals, with a unique approach combining engaging activity and wellness-focused challenges with a wide range of attractive rewards. Through its seamless digital platform that could be integrated to sports wearables, the STEPPI challenge is to push 1 million employees to be more active by 2025. 

The sports & fitness industry in MENA reached a quarterly record of funding in Q3 2021, as Tech-integrated sports apps like STEPPI, Rumbl ($1.1M), and Enhance Fitness ($3M) close major rounds. Observing a 70% QoQ growth in funding in Q3 2021, sports & fitness startups in MENA have found ways to disrupt traditional fitness into dynamic spaces for progress. While STEPPI elevates user's daily life and adds health priorities to their workflow, other startups like WeMove and Inggez work to disrupt the traditional gym membership model to allow users access to on-demand training & workout spaces. 

STEPPI co-founder Milos Savic told MAGNiTT that through partnerships with UAE Government stakeholders, STEPPI is powering projects and challenges for several hundred thousand users.  The UAE-based team has registered more than 50Bn steps, 350M active minutes, and 4.5 Bn calories across their platform.  STEPPI Co-Founder Joe Franklin highlighted “We have experienced phenomenal growth in the STEPPI business in the short time since we launched in 2020.  We are now managing some of the largest corporate wellness programs in the region working with clients such as Dubai Holding, PwC, Unilever, and several UAE government entities.  Corporate wellness is a rapidly evolving field and our partnership with Embody Fitness now gives us access to their industry-leading team of fitness coaches, nutritionists, and wellness experts. This will allow us to greatly expand the range of wellness services we can offer, as well as individualize employee wellness journeys through our multi-channel platform."

This is the third round of funding for this rapidly growing fitness start-up in a key sector for corporates and investors alike. This validates STEPPI’s unique selling points and gets them on a track to further finesse its platform offerings.  The partnership and capital investment will allow STEPPI to develop its services into the wider fields of wellness, including nutrition, physical training & activity programs, stress management, and community engagement. In light of this recent investment and new power partnership James Miller, Founder of Embody Fitness concluded “Embody Fitness has quickly established itself as an industry leader in results and outcome-driven health and fitness.  We are hugely impressed with what the STEPPI team has achieved to date and we are excited to join the business and help STEPPI establish itself as the leading provider of corporate wellness solutions across the Middle East region and beyond."