CXA Group gets US$25 million series B funding, Eduardo Saverin on board

Asia’s first employee benefits and flex wellness marketplace CXA Group has announced US$25 million Series B investment, with a view to expand to over 10 Asian markets, co-led by B Capital Group and Singapore-based EDBI, and backed by The Boston Consulting Group.

With Philips and RGAx (a subsidiary of Reinsurance Group of America Incorporated) joining the list of CXA's high-profile investors, the board of directors has been strengthened with the joining of Facebook co-founder, Eduardo Saverin.

Saverin commented: "CXA is an exciting addition to our portfolio. Its unique business model cuts across three out of four of our focus industries, including health & wellness, financial services and consumer services. The CXA platform offers employers and employees an innovative solution that facilitates deeper and more personalised benefits experiences in the workplace, and enables employees to make better financial choices and more informed wellness decisions."

Institutional investors NSI Ventures and Bioveda Capital from Series A continue to support CXA as it prepares for geographic expansion  - with plans to scale operations beyond Singapore and Hong Kong, to Malaysia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

With the new round of investment, CXA is now valued at over US$100 million.

CXA's clients with pan-Asian operations will soon be able to leverage their existing insurance spend via its brokerages to get data analytics as well as wellness and benefits administration through CXA’s platform. The company’s regional expansion strategy includes scaling its SaaS platform for distribution to SMEs and individuals via banks and insurers.

CHU Swee Yeok, CEO and president of EDBI, commented: "EDBI is especially pleased to co-lead this investment in CXA, an emerging homegrown leader in the fast-growing population health management sector. This is also the first joint investment under the EDBI and Philips’ alliance to partner and grow high-potential digital health companies."

Investor RGAx builds and partners innovative businesses that support the life and health insurance industry. Greg Goodfliesh, MD of RGAx Asia, added: "We recognise that workplace wellness initiatives empower employees to lead healthier and longer lives. We are pleased to partner with CXA to help them develop innovative solutions to the growing challenges of rising healthcare costs."

Rosaline Chow Koo is the founder and CEO of CXA Group, credited with building the CXA platform from her living room over one year, after signing a personal guarantee with DBS for a S$5million loan.

On the development, she said: "We're bringing evidence-based wellness into the workplace to improve employee health to control rising employer healthcare costs. Instead of just offering advice, we deliver solutions to companies by aggregating the data analytics and the wellness and disease management providers."

She added: "Our goal is to shift the focus of insurance from treatment to prevention and to empower employees to take personal responsibility for their health."

Human Resources found out more in a Q&A with Rosaline Koo.

In light of your series B funding, how does this impact your hiring plans for 2017 and going forward? Key roles that you're looking to fill, and the number of hirings?

With S$35 million in the bank, we will continue to expand aggressively in Singapore, Hong Kong and China and hire industry veterans and other high performance talent for the following roles:

• Consultants in benefits, flex, wellness and health cost containment
• Brokers and account managers
• Actuaries and benefits analysts
• Business development
• Clinicians
• Project manager and implementors
• Operations re-engineering and business transformation specialists
• Data scientists
• Front and back end developers
• UI/UX designers
• Call center reps.

Because of our rapid growth, we have already doubled the HR team with specialists in C&B, talent, systems and recruitment.  Our aim is to build an environment that brings out the best in our talent, so we have hired a full-time trainer to lead the CXA Academy focused on leadership, technical and functional training.

We’re also launching enhanced employee on-boarding/orientation and performance management processes to ensure that we on-board, set aligned goals, manage performance and ensure growth and learning for everyone.

With Eduardo Saverin joining the board, what is the board mandate for this year?

Our key goals for 2017:

1. Double our growth rates by leveraging key CEO level contacts from BCG and Eduardo.
2. Scale technology and shared services operations to support 10 countries across Asia.
3. Launch new health management product that offers HR the opportunity to reduce premium increases by undertaking disease management and wellness programmes designed to improve employee health and lower claims costs.
4. Launch new distribution channel for insurers and banks to white-label CXA’s SAAS platform.  We’ve just completed a successful insurer pilot so now it’s time to ramp up.