ZavFit

Edinburgh
Seeking investment

ZavFit is a health app for money stress. For many, it is impossible to escape everyday money worries. Simple decisions like the weekly shop or turning on the heat brings feelings of concern, guilt and growing panic. This stress is impacting all aspects of people’s lives, their work, their relationships and their mental health.

The ZavFit app is designed by scientists to help people reduce the stress, anxiety and guilt they feel with money by using proven behavioural change techniques. The app securely syncs with bank accounts and credit cards, so people can understand the impact each purchase has on their mental health and take action.

  • Build healthy money skills with Daily Tips: Helps people gain confidence on money habits that positively impact their health and wellbeing. All tips are grounded in science and reveal the ‘why’ behind our money thoughts, emotions, habits and behaviours.
  • Connect money and wellbeing with MoneyMoods: Reflect on the emotional impact of each purchase so people can begin to think about how they use their money and the impact it has on their mental health.
  • Identify ways to improve spending habits with MyInsights: People love data on themselves, our psychology engine will analyse purchases and MoneyMood ratings to provide summaries, reveal positive and negative patterns in spending habits and identify opportunities to improve/change spending habits.
  • Track progress with our pioneering Happiness Per Pound £ metric: An entirely new way to think about money that offers immediate insight into a person’s financial wellbeing and how much happiness they get from each £ spent.

ZavFit is revolutionising the way people think about their money with health in mind. Simple everyday tasks to take back control of their money stress. Early data shows ZavFit can improve the how people feel about money after just 1 month.

Feel more positive about money with ZavFit

ZavFit is a Health app for money stress. Founded by Anna Freeman in 2019, the ZavFit team brings together some of the brightest minds in HealthTech, FinTech, Neuroscience and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

Worrying about money is one of the leading causes of mental health issues in the UK with 39.4 million adults suffering from money stress. For many, it is impossible to escape everyday money worries. Simple decisions like the weekly shop or turning on the heat brings feelings of concern, guilt and growing panic. This stress is impacting all aspects of people’s lives – their mental health, their ability to focus at work and even their relationships. However, it is consistently overlooked as a health issue by both the health and finance sectors.

This costs UK businesses more than £40bn a year, with the average cost per employee a staggering £1,560 due to absenteeism, lower productivity and higher staff turnover.  But it doesn’t have to be this way.

At ZavFit we think differently. As a health app for money stress, we are on a mission to make the world a healthier, happier place by addressing the habits, mindset and emotions that give rise to money stress, anxiety and guilt.

Founder & CEO Anna Freeman’s passion for health, fitness and wellbeing started young: Anna represented England in Table Tennis as a teenager and in her thirties took up boxing, having her first competitive bout just nine months later. She enjoyed a successful career in the FinTech space, largely in the City.

Anna identified that a healthy money mindset is a crucial dimension of health and wellbeing, an observation made following her own very personal journey to wellbeing. Anna’s vision was to take a preventative approach to money stress to stop problems arising before they require treatment and place a burden on the NHS.

“ZavFit is a MoneyFitness Movement. It’s something we’ve been working tirelessly on after recognising the devastating impact that money stress has on our health. We’re delighted to see first-hand the app having positive impacts on people’s happiness. With so many daily pressures surrounding our money, it’s critical that we continue to focus on health outcomes and bring ZavFit to more people struggling with money stress.”

In Q2 2022, ZavFit completed BETAs with three health providers where early results showed that using ZavFit for one month increases people’s happiness with their spending. Over 300 participants used the app and had access to educational content too. The BETA insights showed that a worrying 67% of the participants suffered from stressing about money and even showed a correlation between being stressed about money and having lower mental wellbeing. ZavFit was able to provide proof of concept.

Since the BETA, the team made several enhancements to the app and it is available for iOS users on the Apple App store and through their health provider, their banks or their employers.Additionally, the app is authorised and regulated by the FCA as an agent of TrueLayer (Firm reference number 901096).

ZavFit is a B2B2C annual subscription model and contracts with health distributors to offer the ZavFit app as part of their own core health and wellbeing product offering; banks to offer the ZavFit app to their customers; and directly with enterprises to offer the ZavFit app as part of an employee benefits package.

ZavFit has been called a game changer by the health industry and a pioneer by the wellness industry. Reach out for details on our current Seed funding round.

Anna is Founder/CEO and has been described as exceptional, passionate, driven and personable. In sport, music and business she’s reached national and international recognition. She’s on a mission to help people realise their potential and is convinced that everyone is capable of finding and achieving their dreams. Anna’s identified that a healthy money mindset is a dimension of the growing health & wellness space that is not being addressed. Having been on this journey herself, she believes there is a real business opportunity.

Anna has a successful career in building Financial Technology companies – from being personally responsible for growing and driving global Fin Tech businesses, to introducing electronic trading for stocks and shares, to creating industry wide standards, to leadership roles in transforming UK businesses. Anna’s experience is diverse and varied

Read about Anna https://wearethecity.com/inspirational-woman-anna-freeman-founder-ceo-zavfit/

Podcast with Anna https://open.spotify.com/episode/4kYYUh23IYksUT18sEjfAl?si=e5e81f0f9c0f4994

 

Ian Taylor, Chairman

Ian has been described as an inspired leader – he’s focused and competitive yet humble and approachable. He believes that putting people first is the way to drive real business growth. He challenges conventional thinking in unexpected and insightful ways, easily spotting new market opportunities and mapping out best-in-class solutions. This combined with his can-do attitude, means that he is highly sought after by start-ups as a board advisor, strategic consultant and angel investor.

Ian co-founded Calastone, a global funds transaction network that currently has 1,500 B2B customers in 35 countries carrying £90bn in monthly transactions. Calastone has been named to the FinTech 50, the European FinTech and the UK Government’s Tech City Futures Fifty. He is currently Chairman at ZavFit and previously NED Chairman at Human Recognition Systems.

 

Liz Engelsen, CPO and CMO

Liz Engelsen is Chief Product, Marketing and Engagement Officer at ZavFit. After working with some of the world’s most recognised brands like Starbucks, Wrigley, British Airways, Motorola, Diageo, IBM and MasterCard, Liz made a bold and perhaps radical decision to step down from a prestigious role as Executive Director of Strategy at Interbrand to start a family. A few years back, Liz was enticed by ZavFit’s purpose led mission to tackle money stress and help people feel happier and healthier.

Thinking differently has been a common thread in Liz’s career, having created countless brand, innovation and marketing strategies. She’s built and led diverse global teams of strategists, analysts, scientists, technical and creatives to deliver change and growth across employee, customer, and product groups in upwards of 35 countries. She prides herself on getting people engaged and excited about new ideas and always putting the customer first. She lived/worked in New York City, London, Amsterdam and even a few months in Tokyo. She is now based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

 

James Roberts, CCO

James Roberts is Chief Commercial Officer and comes to ZavFit after an illustrious career at the prestigious Zurich Insurance Company where he held various leadership roles. In the 29 years he spent at Zurich, he lived in the Midlands, Shropshire, Cheshire and Surrey in key roles as Head of Sales & Distribution UK General Insurance Division, he also headed up Zurich’s largest region (South East), and was Head of Navigators and General, a business unit specialising in Pleasurecraft and Marine Trades Insurance. Most of his career has been focused on Sales and Relationship Management, developing sales & distribution strategies and working with regional teams to deliver on the plans. In early 2020, James decided to take on a new career adventure, bringing his valuable experience to ZavFit alongside his keen interest in Health and Fitness.

 

Dr. Geoff Bird, PhD Health advisor

Professor Geoff Bird is a cognitive neuroscientist, i.e. he is both a psychologist and neuroscientist. He is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and hold honorary positions at Radboud University in The Netherlands and the University of Birmingham. He was previously a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London. Geoff is the author of approximately 200 scientific papers, with over 17,000 citations. Acknowledged as a world-leading expert on mental health and neurodevelopmental disorders, Geoff is also world-leading in understanding how humans relate to other humans.

Geoff has a keen interest in using his scientific knowledge and skill to improve performance of individuals and teams in organisations. He has consulted for approximately half of the world’s top 50 law firms, and global utilities, banking, finance, and engineering firms. He has also worked with start-ups, and is a scientific adviser at Zavfit. His interest in increasing performance led to Geoff completing a WABC-accredited Business Coaching course focusing on the neuroscience of leadership and performance.

Geoff served as a Science Policy Advisor to the UK Government throughout 2008 and is one of the Principals of the Centre for Educational Neuroscience – an organisation dedicated to enriching education through the application of findings from neuroscience. He is frequently consulted by media to explain the relevance of neuroscience to society and business, and has been voted one of the UK’s ‘Most Influential HR Thinkers’ by HR magazine.

 

Campbell Brierely, Technology advisor

Campbell has held roles as Chief Technology Officer, Chief Innovation Office, and is currently Chief Innovation Officer at Calastone. Calastone is a global funds transaction network that currently has 1,500 B2B customers in 35 countries carrying £90bn in monthly transactions. It has been named to the FinTech 50, the European FinTech and the UK Government’s Tech City Futures Fifty. Campbell is the third original member of Calastone, where he designed and architected the Calastone Transaction Network and also implemented a number of other product lines.

Campbell has been in the Financial Technology industry for over 30 years, developing and implementing back, middle, and front office systems. The majority of this was in messaging technologies and communication platforms, predominantly SWIFT and latterly FIX.. He has scaled up global tech teams and rolled out tech products globally.

His previous achievements include the delivery of an order management system to connect the majority of Asian exchanges for CLSA, mostly for the first time. Campbell has also developed connected for the back and middle office applications to SWIFT, and consulted on messaging for tier one investment banks.

Overview

  • Funding Stage Post-seed
  • Trading for 1-5 years
  • Employees 1-5
  • Sector Personal Finance
  • Valuation N/A

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