Australia’s first health and wellness gift card startup quickly achieves $5.8 million in sales

A Melbourne-based digital gift card platform on a mission to become the primary gifting method for health and wellness services in Australia has generated $5.8 million in sales revenue within 18 weeks of launching.

Mentwell, which claims to be Australia’s first health and wellness gift card startup, was launched by solo-bootstrapped founder CEO Nikki Williams, with the digital gift cards officially rolling out in November 2023.

The gift cards provide recipients with access to their own choice of mental health and wellness services, including GPs, psychologists, dentists, and allied health, as well as a range of other services.

Within the next 10 years, Mentwell hopes to achieve its goal of 60% of personal and business gifting occurring on the platform.

With the mental health crisis at an all-time high, Williams spoke with SmartCompany about how Mentwell has grown and why businesses should be supporting employees and empowering them to prioritise their wellbeing and seek the support they need.

“It’s been an awful lot of outreach, it’s all to do with networks, it’s all to do with reaching the right kind of people and having the right kind of conversations,” she said. 

“So for me it was about finding social impact driven businesses to begin with. 

“They’re the ones who know that this is a space that is currently under-activated and not working efficiently or effectively. 

“That’s why they’ve been able to jump on board and be able to move the decision up the chain quite quickly.”

Williams said the overarching mission for Mentwell is to be the missing link in solving the mental health crisis for consumers, businesses, organisations, charities and not-for-profits. 

“That’s through proactive mental health intervention that anyone can access anytime,” she said. 

“So being able to say that message in a number of different ways, depending on who you’re speaking to, has been the key differentiator in terms of being able to get this through to businesses.”

“Better solutions” needed

Williams initially founded Mentwell because she wanted to help a friend pay for a psychology appointment.

“When I knew that I couldn’t help a friend pay for their psychology appointment, I knew that I had to do something. As a repeat entrepreneur, I knew that I could do it too,” she said. 

“So that’s why I started building Mentwell and that’s why it’s important so that we can help each other gain optimum health and wellness for one another. 

“That’s how we show real empathy and that’s how we show real care to one another.”

From a business perspective, Williams said Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) have less than 5% uptake Australia-wide.

“That clearly says that the service is not working, that we need better solutions, and that we need structural change at the end of the day for businesses to really represent the health and wellness of their employees in a real way,” she said.

“This is why Mentwell is trying to change how we think about health and wellness benefits for staff and also EAP systems. 

“Charities at the moment have up to 65% of their charitable funds going to admin fees. That means 65% of all of their donations are not landing in the hands of those that actually need it the most.

“We’re talking about homeless people, we’re talking Indigenous communities and we’re talking about anyone out there who’s in deep need of funds. 

“Mentwell sort of creates a shortcut for charities and for NFPs to make sure that philanthropist funds and charitable funds come into the charity and then they can be distributed to their beneficiaries directly.”

Williams cited figures that estimate that the mental health crisis in Australia is costing businesses $39.9 billion dollars a year. 

“It’s a huge stat and we’re losing so much money through businesses alone, so really Mentwell has a chance to actually implore employers to make sure that they’re spending their money wisely, ” she said.

“There’s plenty of options out there and it’s now time that they think about systematic change instead of just adding to the resources available to their employees from an information perspective.” 

Mentwell is looking at US expansion in year three, with Williams confirming the business has a virtual campaign happening in April this year.

”Then we’re looking to fill our pre-seed [funding] with another $2.5 million, so that leads to a $4 million pre-seed round and then after that, we’re looking at our seed round which will allow us to expand into the US by year three,” she said. 

“I really have a larger goal for every single individual around the world to have a Mentwell fund at all times.”