Virgin Pulse Celebrates Record-breaking Year of Growth, Innovation, and Global Expansion

FRAMINGHAM, MA--(Marketwired - January 31, 2017) - Virgin Pulse, the leading provider of technology-enabled wellness and wellbeing solutions, today announced its 2016 results, highlighting the company's record-breaking growth, international expansion, strategic investments, innovative advancements and recognition in employee wellbeing and engagement.

"2016 was an incredible and eventful year where we saw Virgin Pulse, our clients, and members again raise the bar on employee wellbeing and engagement," said David Osborne, President and COO, Virgin Pulse. "Over the past 12 months, we've finalized our integration with ShapeUp and GCC, solidified our place as the leader in worldwide workplace wellbeing, expanded our global footprint, demonstrated that employee wellbeing has a real and measurable impact on business outcomes, and delivered products that support organizations throughout the entire employee wellbeing lifecycle. The strong foundation we laid last year will allow us to scale and accelerate our product roadmap and our business, and keep us at the forefront of innovation in 2017 and beyond."

"The past year has validated the Virgin Pulse approach to employee wellbeing, proving that daily habits that help employees be and do their best will lead to incredible results," said Chris Boyce, CEO, Virgin Pulse. "In the months and years ahead, we're taking our ability to engage to the next level, using our best-in-class technology, user-centric design, and proven programming to drive innovation, employee engagement, retention, productivity, and business results from top to bottom."

2016 Highlights:

Growth and International Expansion

In the past year, Virgin Pulse doubled sales, and saw significant growth in the international market. With the strategic acquisitions of ShapeUp and Global Corporate Challenge (GCC) in February, Virgin Pulse extended its global footprint to include 2,200 clients in 185 countries, including 120 Fortune 500 companies. The company has 11 global offices to support its growing global client base and members. In 2016 alone, 2 million members used Virgin Pulse's workplace wellbeing software to build healthier habits, collaborate with colleagues, and reach their health and wellbeing goals.

The company added many new clients, including BASF Corporation, Brown-Forman Corporation, and Reynolds American, Inc.

Virgin Pulse also recently announced an expansion of its Providence, RI office, contributing 300 new jobs to the local economy.

Technology Innovation

Throughout 2016, Virgin Pulse continued to raise the bar on wellbeing and engagement software innovation, making significant technology and user experience advances. Product announcements strategically expanded both the breadth and depth of the Virgin Pulse platform, bringing more meaningful daily experiences to members and advanced solutions to clients, no matter where they are on their wellbeing journey. The company also announced strategic partnerships with leading health and wellbeing leaders, further validating Virgin Pulse's best-in-class solutions and market leadership. Major announcements include:

- Exclusive partnership with Fitbit Global Health, offering our clients and their employees the best health and wellbeing technology solutions and devices in the world, and giving Virgin Pulse members who use a Fitbit device a completely seamless experience tracking between the two apps.

- Virgin Pulse Core, a wellness solution that integrates traditional benefits -- including HRAs, biometric screenings, and coaching into a single user experience -- and pairs them with configurable incentives, detailed analytics capabilities, and user-centric design.

- Virgin Pulse Ignite, a social wellbeing program that allows companies to create custom challenges and deploy them to targeted populations.

- An enhanced and optimized version of the company's total wellbeing solution, Virgin Pulse Engage. With powerful personalization and rich daily habit-formation tools, Virgin Pulse Engage drives sustained behavior change and business results.

- Virgin Pulse Hub, included in Virgin Pulse's Core, Ignite and Engage solutions, allows organizations to easily integrate and manage third party HR benefits and program providers and provides employers with a centralized, one-stop-shop for vendor management, population segmentation, employee communications, and reporting.

- Powerful analytics technology, powered by Domo, that provides HR and benefits administrators with real-time insights into the way wellbeing is powering culture, engagement, and productivity.

- Virgin Pulse App for Apple Watch, the first smartwatch app for workplace wellbeing.

- A strategic partnership with Quest Diagnostics, the world's leading provider of diagnostic information services, to provide clients with best-in-class biometric screening capabilities.

Member Engagement & Health Outcomes

The company's 2.4 million employee members around the world set new records for engagement, with 50% of the population interacting with Virgin Pulse more than 5 days per week. In addition, members met the following impressive benchmarks in 2016:

- Over 718 billion steps walked, the equivalent of 359 million miles and farther than a single trip to Mars.

- Over 224 million active minutes exercised, over 426 years of healthy physical activity.

- Nearly 66 million daily cards completed and over 92 million healthy habits tracked, leading to positive lifestyle changes, both in and out of the office.

- More than 5.8 million completed challenges, contributing to positive culture change and heightened employee engagement.

Industry Awards and Recognition

Virgin Pulse has received several industry recognitions for its exceptional work in workplace wellbeing, including WorldatWork Work-Life 2016 Seal of Distinction, the 2016 [app] Design Award for Virgin Pulse App for Apple Watch, the InfluenceHR Brand Power Award for Employee Engagement, and the TMT News Award for Best Employee Engagement Platform.

Underscoring its leadership, product innovation and success in delivering wellbeing and engagement solutions that drive meaningful business results, Virgin Pulse was included and highlighted in several industry reports including Bersin by Deloitte's HR Technology Disruptions for 2017; Gartner's Achieve Business Cost Optimization with Human Capital Management Technology and Hype Cycle for US Healthcare Payers, 2016; and two reports from Forrester: Use Digital Technologies to Improve Employee Engagement and Harness The Potential of Millennials With Your Workforce Technology Strategy.

For more information on Virgin Pulse's suite of employee wellbeing solutions which drive culture, engagement, and productivity, visit www.virginpulse.com.

About Virgin Pulse
Virgin Pulse, the leading provider of technology solutions that promote employee engagement and wellbeing and part of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group, helps employers create workforces that are happier, healthier and ultimately more productive. The company's modern, mobile first platform delivers a personalized user experience that utilizes gamification to engage users in building habits that inspire meaningful and measurable change across individuals and the businesses they serve. By helping employees thrive at work and in all aspects of life, Virgin Pulse is helping change lives and businesses around the world for good. More than 2,200 global organizations representing many of the Fortune 500 and Best Places to Work, have selected Virgin Pulse's solutions to engage their workforces and drive their businesses forward.