Kara Connect chooses the capital as a base with the aim of European expansion
Commerce
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Kara Connect has today announced that it will locate its operations in Ireland, with plans to create up to 100 new positions. The announcement follows a recent €6 million Series A fundraising round led by Kvika Asset Management.
Founded in Iceland by Thorbjorg Helga Vigfusdottir, educational psychologist and cognitive development specialist turned entrepreneur, Kara Connect began as a practice management platform for therapists.
It also announced Kerry businessman John McElligott, who has been a Kara Connect board member since 2020, as COO and Head of Ireland for Kara Connect, responsible for leading European expansion from Ireland.
Kara Connect is a health and wellness platform that connects employees with coaches, counselors and therapists. It provides organizations with a range of solutions to enable employees to access services that are tailored to their individual well-being requirements.
The company has begun recruiting and creating positions in sales, marketing, customer service and finance to initially target the UK and Ireland markets, followed by mainland Europe. It has already registered and engaged health and wellness practitioners including nutritionists, psychologists, life and career coaches and financial advisors, among others, to provide services to employees on dedicated private company platforms.
Kara Connect offers a leading technology solution that provides a highly secure platform for employees to interact with healthcare professionals and access the wellness support they need. The platform has also been developed to support therapists and counselors with a range of solutions that include enhanced interaction tools and the ability to upload case notes to a secure platform, allowing practitioners to engage and support their clients digitally.
The Kara Connect platform was built with security as a top priority. All data is fully encrypted end-to-end and all technical components use leading security features. The solution ensures complete confidentiality and discretion for those availing of the wellbeing services.
“More and more organizations are recognizing the health and well-being of their workforce as a top priority in employee recruitment, engagement and retention,” McElligott said. “At the same time, employees are now looking to their employers for access to coaching, counseling and therapy. These trends have been accelerated by the pandemic and these services are becoming a recognized standard for corporate wellbeing across Europe and beyond.”
“In the past, employee wellness was focused on providing the same experience for everyone, such as free food, ping pong tables and wellness lectures. Today, we see employees increasingly looking for support to deal with specific but variable problems. Kara Connect enables employers to provide well-being services tailored to individual employee requirements in complete privacy.”
Torbjörg Helga Vigfusdóttir, CEO of Kara Connect, said: “Dublin is recognized worldwide as a location for top talent and as a global technology hub, making it the perfect location for us to establish our European sales and marketing hub. Ireland will form our base of operations for expansion into the UK and beyond in the coming years.”
Kara Connect works with a diverse range of predominantly Scandinavian clients, including University Hospital, Reykjavik Power, Samkaup and the University of Reykjavik.
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