NEW YORK. The founder and CEO of the Chilean social unicorn Betterfly, Eduardo della Maggiora, announced during a speech at the New York Stock Exchange that the company will share its profits with public good foundationsas Milk for Haiti, Water is Life y One Tree Planted.
Under the plan, the Betterfly benefits platform will allow NGOs participate in a proportion of the ownership of the company in the event of a public opening or the sale of the company, with the aim of impacting more people, communities and the planet. In this way, the benefits platform takes its donation model to a new level and seeks to be a benchmark and inspiration for more companies to combine business with generating a positive impact on people, communities and the planet.
Until now, users of the more than four thousand companies in the markets where the company is present -Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Spain- had the possibility of make donations to different social causes thanks to the use of the platform.
From now on, with the call “Betterfly Legacy”will be added to this model the unprecedented formula with which, linked to the growth of the company, the foundations benefited by Betterfly will have access to the so-called “Social Impact Stock Units” (sisus), an instrument through which the foundations will Participate in Betterfly’s ownership and financial success in the event of a future IPO or sale of the company.
“This is a milestone that constitutes a great step towards the global company focused on the purpose we are building. The Betterfly Legacy is, literally, the legacy that we want to give to the planet, to society and to the entities that work every day to transform this world into a better place for everyone”, said Della Maggiora, who in her speech emphasized her history family and the company’s commitment to the common good.
“Today we start this new way of doing business, to inspire the business world from a place as iconic as the New York Stock Exchange, and we reinforce our commitment to social impact. The foundations that receive contributions through the use of our platform will continue to receive it as they do today, but with the Betterfly Legacy we will also be providing them with a solution that will allow them greater financial peace of mind in the long term, participating in the profits of a future opening. on the stock market or the sale of the company”, explained the Chilean businessman.
“The Betterfy Legacy is one more step for our mission, which is create a company whose main engine is to leave a better world and a better society”, indicated Della Maggiora during a press conference with important Latin American media on Wall Street. “We believe that the financial and economic return must be there, but it must be an output, not what guides growth. The purpose must come before profitability, which must be a consequence. Hopefully from this many companies will do the same,” said the entrepreneur, who also explained that those who choose where these actions will go will be “the Betterfly users themselves, who decide who they want to help.”
Carmen Lagos is president of Milk for Haiti, a Chilean NGO dedicated to helping children suffering from malnutrition in that Central American country and one of the foundations benefited by Betterfly. Present in the historic building of the New York Stock Exchange, Lagos offered her support to the initiative: “We, as Milk for Haiti, have verified the transformative power that Betterfly has had since its inception. We were the first foundation that Betterfly supported exactly five years ago, and since then we have witnessed how, over the years, it has been innovating and generating new opportunities and instances for people and companies to can generate a social impact through their actions. The Betterfly Legacy is a new example of this and for us it is a great joy to be able to continue having them as allies and to be part of this launch. We hope this serves as a call for more companies to become agents of change and impact.”
Betterfly is a platform that companies subscribe to to manage and deliver flexible benefits to your teams. Employees can access a series of products and services, such as telemedicine, online training and insurance, among others. And the more they use the app, the more social donations they can make.
“We want, through the benefits platform, to empower people to live their best life, that’s why we exist. In the end, what makes us different and what makes us special is that this benefits platform, which includes insurance, is involved in a gamification experience and that it gives you a purpose as a tool to encourage employees to live better, he explained. to THE NATION the Portuguese Joao Figueira, VP of Business Development of the company, during a conference in a modern hotel in the Meatpacking District, one block from the iconic Chelsea Market in New York.
Thus, the employees of the companies that hire Betterfly add “bettercoins” as they walk or run and can then donate them to the foundation of their choice. This sum of pointsIt usually translates into healthy competition within companiessince on the platform people can check in a position table who was the one who walked or ran the most.
In September 2021, as part of its entry into the Brazilian market, Betterfly announced its alliance with Icatú, the largest independent insurer in that country. Then, in December of the same year announced Chubb, the world’s leading publicly traded insurance company, as its partner for operations in five Latin American countries and, later, for its entry into Peru, it signed a partnership with Interseguros, of the Intercorp Group.
In February 2022 it became the first social unicorn in Latin America after reaching a valuation of one billion dollars in its Series C investment round, the one that raised 125 million dollars and in which funds such as Glade Brook Capital, Greycroft and Lightrock participated, as well as QED Investors and DST Partners, who again invested in the company.
On the New York Stock Exchange, Della Maggiora assured that they plan to continue their expansion in the United States and Asia and spoke about the company’s projects in Argentina, the last market in which they landed, in October last year: “We have an expectation very big, because we are going to launch a very different market entry in the coming months. We have two channels, some companies that hire Betterfly for their employees and others that do it for their clients. And in Argentina we have a partner (it would be one of the most important banks in the country) with which we are going to reach hundreds of thousands of Argentines”.
Andrés O’Ryan, Betterfly’s country manager for Chile and Argentina, was also present during the presentation at the NYSE and spoke to LA NACION about the company’s future in the country. “We are with the first clients, especially regional clients that also have operations in Argentina. We have three companies with which we closed, and we are in talks with Rappi”.
Regarding how the Argentine economic crisis affects the arrival of the company, O’Ryan pointed out: “You have to be careful and responsible, but what we like in these beginnings is the motivation that exists. Argentina has people who are super competitive and it shows that there is a great desire to learn about the application. The company that we have opened is impressive, the number of people who log in to the app versus other countries. The insertion is much faster, because they want to know more. And the donation part also works very well, we are with the Fundación del Libro and we are also seeing other NGOs”.
“What I see differentiated in Argentina is that it is a market that when it empathizes with something and sees that there really is a real impact, it is much more committed than other types of cultures, which have more mistrust, more questions. The Argentines want to try and see the impact that is generated and how that entails with their day to day: playing ball, walking to work, being able to have that synergy. It ends up being super entertaining, there is a lot of interest in the people. We are in conversations with some suppliers to have discounts in some pharmacies and supermarkets and that this is linked to your healthy habits and that as you progress you have greater benefits and discounts”, O’Ryan closed.
