Simon Belsham, the CEO and co-founder of The Healing Company, joined Cheddar News to discuss the company's acquisition of Deepak Chopra's business.

Simon Belsham, the CEO and co-founder of The Healing Company, joined Cheddar News to discuss the company's acquisition of Deepak Chopra's wellness business. The executive also discussed its role in the preventive healthcare market as more people focus more on their well-being.

Closing Bell

CEO of the Healing Company on Acquiring Chopra Global

The healing company operates an e commerce platform that brings together alternative health providers. The startup saying it's building a community of healing brands through the acquisition of companies in the wellness and supplement spaces. Well, it recently acquired the well being experiences business from Chopra Global, a health company started by author and alternative medicine advocate Deepak Chopra. So joining me now is Simon Bels, co founder and CEO of the healing company. Uh Simon, thanks so much for coming on the show. Thanks for having me, Kristen. Tell me more about this deal. Why now and how is it going to add to the company? So why now, I actually think there's never been a more important time in the world for building a business that's really focused on preventative health care. We've got some significant tailwinds from the pandemic. More people are thinking about their health and well being than they ever have been before. And we see as the economy gets tougher, it's actually something that people care more about. It's a very economy resistant category when times are tough, people want to feel good and well being helps them feel that way. And at the same time, we are an aggregator business, we're trying to bring companies together and as an independent business right now, it can be quite hard to market through social media through changing rules and regulations. And so with a platform like ours, we can help these founders have more impact. And so that's what we set the business up to do. And Chopra Global is the most recent acquisition we've completed as part of that. So let's walk through the user experience, a user who would interact with Chopra Global. For instance, since we're talking about that specific company in business, what is the user experience like? So there's a number of parts to the Chopra Global Business. They have a meditation and well being app. The Chopra app has a million downloads 4.9 star rating on the App Store, a lot of content from Dr Deepak Chora himself as well as many other experts in this space. And it gives people a chance to learn about what matters to them. After what I've heard is people call it the alternate medicine, but it really is the original medicine. It's been around for thousands of years and it allows you to personalize what's right for you and the practices that are right for you. On the back of that, you can then also purchase Chora branded products, which then can help bring your body back into balance supplement for some of your nutritional deficiencies or lifestyle deficiencies and then lastly, there's chora experiences. You can go for a five day retreat and really reset and detox your body. Go to a wellness spa, understand IIC practices and rituals and all of those things come together under the chopra brand that we are helping them build and scale. How does that brand Simon fit into your firm's overall portfolio of wellness companies. So our vision with the healing company is to bring integrated healing brands to the world, as you said. And what that means is bringing brands that individually, we can help grow and scale through the founder. Expertise. In this case, DEAC is one of the world's leading holistic health care practitioners. He's known throughout the world. He's committed his life to helping people think about more broader preventative health care approaches. Bringing that together with our expertise and our team deep expertise in social commerce, e commerce, retail distribution, and an international perspective. Together we can help that individual business grow. Then when we bring businesses together, we help them have exponential growth and opportunity. And so the first company that we bought last year, a company called your Super Foods, your Super. They're a specialist in plant based super food nutrition plant based eating is part of the vedic principles. And so you bring chopra together with your super and they can mutually connect to help bring a broader and more comprehensive proposition for consumers. I do want to ask you about what a slowdown in the economy might mean for the healing industry as a whole. So I think you're right. Everyone wants to feel good. Right? When times are tough, I think people almost lean on some of these practices, treatments and integrated options more so maybe than they normally would. How does a slowdown in growth impact a business like yours? So we actually see the economy right now is actually a real opportunity for what we're doing for a number of reasons. Partly because of what you've said, I've worked in consumer businesses for over 20 years. And through that time, we've had a number of slowdowns. And what we always see is people want to do things that make them feel good during that period and well being And wellness in general is one of those things. And so actually in the 2008-9 recession, we saw this category grow at almost double digits. So we do see this as an opportunity for the category. I think the second thing is because we're looking to bring businesses together. Asset prices have come down, both public and private equities have reduced in the last 12 to 18 months. And so the opportunity to aggregate those into a platform has never been greater. And then lastly, it's never been more important for people. We see all sorts of studies McKinsey data that shows for over 60 per cent of people, their wellness, their well being is their number one priority when they get up in the morning. And this we believe is an unstoppable trend that's not going to change. And there's so many factors that are driving this approach to preventative health care that we're really focusing on. Let's end with something fun. Simon as the CEO of this company. What's your top Wellness tip for our viewers? One Wellness tip is a great question, Kristen. I mean, I would say get some sleep. It's something we don't do enough of in the city that never sleeps. I'd really encourage everyone in New York to get a few more hours of sleep and they'll feel better when they get up on the day and be more productive and focused every day. Ok. You heard it from Simon himself, Simon Belch and co founder of the healing company, Simon. Thank you.