339. The healthtech founder supporting over 3 million employees w/ Dr Mridula Pore | Peppy

0:00I'm Rodola Pore. I'm CEO and co-founder of Pepe Health. So Pepe is a business that was founded in 2018. And our mission is to make expert-led healthcare simple, accessible, and stigma-free. So we provide services to employers for their employees in areas that are typically underserved by healthcare services. So that includes things like the reproductive gen. So fertility services, pregnancy, parenthood, menopause, which is what we're sort of best known for. but you know now we really do encompass the whole life journey so we have specialist men's health services women's health services and we just launched our new neurodiversity service awesome can you so you're eight years in now yeah can you tell us like what are some of the big successes that you're really proud of during that period so i mean we serve over 250 incredible names in employers and so for me personally the way that I think I really sort of feel like okay Pepe's been successful is when I literally walk down a street in London and I can point to the logos of buildings where I know there are Pepe clients in there or I walk into an office building and I'd scream through the names I was like oh yeah Pepe client oh yeah Pepe client that's amazing there's a lot of like proximity to the people that we're helping and obviously you started when you

1:20Amardeep Parmar:did? Is the business today the same as the original idea or how has it changed over time? So we started the business pre-COVID. And so healthcare has gone through such a massive shift. So when we started, the original idea was very much about providing virtual healthcare services, using technology to do that at scale. But the market wasn't quite ready yet. So especially if you think about, you know, we started with early parenthood. So things like breastfeeding support, pelvic health, et cetera. And there was a lot of people just weren't used to the idea that these services could be delivered virtually.

1:59We weren't as used to Zoom, which sounds bizarre now to think about, but it really wasn't that common for people to use video calling. And so we started off with a very basic marketplace and sort of wallet idea that employers could give their employee however much money they want. It sits in a wallet. We We check the credentials of the people on our platform and they can spend it on the people within the sort of a marketplace idea. Once COVID hit, that accelerated the product development massively because there was suddenly willingness on the sides of both the users and the healthcare professionals to now switch to this virtual model.

2:39And so that happened incredibly fast over the course of 2020.

2:44Amardeep Parmar:And looking at those early days as well, right? So you said about now you work with such big names. How is it like getting those first few customers? Oh, so I think the first few months of Peppy. So with three co-founders, we'd all, you know, we were in our late 30s, early 40s between the three of us. So we had, you know, LinkedIn connections. We had numbers in our phone books. We did it the old fashioned way of just, you know, knocking on every single door. There were days and weeks where we would literally just sit down and go through every single connection on our LinkedIn, every single number in our phone number.

3:23What we found it was that it actually often wasn't the first degree connections that were the most helpful. It was the second degree connections. So friends were honestly not very useful. But they connected us to other people who turned out to be incredibly useful. that it was really knocking on every single door keep talking about the business finding the opportunities and they lead to other opportunities so saying yes to those things so I think it was ultimately we were at an event and somebody mentioned a business in the community event that was going to be happening about menopause just as we were getting ready to launch the menopause service Max my co-founder went to that and he met the two people who did our first two pilots.

4:04And they were really champions for that in their organization. So, you know, it's there is a definitely a random walk element to it. I think once then we started to focus and realize that the employer channel was really the one we were going to focus down on, I think then it starts to change. Then you start investing in the capabilities that really make you well suited to hitting that market, because it is very different whether you are addressing a consumer audience, whether you're addressing an SME audience or the enterprise audience. We put our chips in on the enterprise segment and then you start to build for that.

4:40You build your organizational DNA around that. You build your cultural values around that. Our client's reputation matters more than our reputation. We have to take things like data security, privacy. We have to meet the standards that big banks and corporate law firms require. And that becomes part of how we have to operate. And we have to hire the kind of people who can talk to those folks and understand their language and understand what their needs are. So you hire differently, you invest differently, you build different capabilities for your organisation around that. And then that obviously propagates.

5:20Amardeep Parmar:You mentioned as well how I was three co-founders to begin with, right? And you were quite experienced when you got to start the business. And how did you decide which roles you were going to play in that too? Right, at the very start. That's interesting because I think, you know, often you'll have somebody who's a very technical co-founder. We were all a bit more generalist, but with different interests and different skill sets. So it became very clear that one of us was very good at sales and he's stayed in that sales, especially dealing with larger strategic accounts, commercial partnerships, etc.

5:53And, you know, that became his thing. My other co-founder was very much interested in the product and the technology and sees what it's led on the product strategy and things like that. For me, it became clear that I was very much interested much more in the sort of corporate side of things, the fundraisers. Quite frankly, my CV also opened doors for those fundraisers. And as we became also more focused on women's health during that early period when we were raising VC money, it just made sense that, you know, for me to be doing that role. So I ended up being the person who was basically acting as CFO, building out all the corporate functions that are linked to that, you know, finance, legal, people function, and doing the fundraising, which was a pretty full on activity for the first three or four years.

6:43But it was really about, OK, let's play the strongest card, you know, for whatever needs doing. Like we all did sales for a bit, but it became very clear that one person had a much higher success rate. OK, let him focus on that. And then the rest of us focus on other things that need doing. It became clear that, you know, my profile was definitely a much more attractive one for investors to engage with, discuss with. I had, you know, second, third degree connections with a lot of people. So it just made sense for me to focus on that. I'd never done it before.

7:12Amardeep Parmar:but you know you learn. I think the audience will be curious now you said that your profile was attractive to the investors and like your CV as well what was it about your background that you think really made you stand out to investors? Well first of all so I am you know it's a healthcare business I'm not a clinician so I do have a doctorate though so my background is as engineer so I'm a chemical engineer by training I did my undergrad at Cambridge I then moved to the US to do my PhD and my MBA at MIT. So I had been in this sort of tech forward environment during the very formative period of my career.

7:45I have, you know, a network, a lot of my classmates have gone on to do tech startups, be that in Silicon Valley or in Asia or other parts of the world. So, you know, while I said I haven't done that before, I was, had proximity to a lot of people who had done that and seen it in lots of other parts of the world. Following my time at MIT, I came back to London and then I was at McKinsey in the healthcare practice for a number of years. So I did work both in the public sector and in the private sector for McKinsey. I left there as a senior engagement manager and then moved into the corporate world.

8:22So I joined Sanders, which was a division of Novartis Group at the time. I ran the retail and wholesale business unit for them for a while. So I had P &L management. It's about$100 million turnover business, B2B. So a lot of things that I had done in my past gave me both the exposure to other people doing that. A lot of VCs do have not dissimilar backgrounds to me. So there's a sort of affinity there. But also, I had the commercial credibility. I had led an organization. I had brought cash in through the door in other ways. And so I think that just, you know, that's something that just grabs interest.

9:05Amardeep Parmar:And in those early days, when you're thinking about what strategy to go for and whether to go for VC or whether to go for other types of money, what did you end up doing and why do you think you made the right choice? We did end up going down the VC route and the rationale for it was very simple, which was that there was interest in this space, not at the very beginning, not in 2018, 2019, But once COVID hit, the interest just surged in digital health. I mean, the thing is, we actually made a very conscious decision to take VC money. And the thinking was around what happens if we take VC money, but also what happens if we don't.

9:42And in a situation where there was a lot of VC capital flowing around and interest in this space, if we don't, somebody else does. And we are then in a position where we're not able to run as fast as we need to do to keep ahead of the market and build a leading position in the market. We were very clear, this is what is career prime time for us. The opportunity cost of doing a startup is very high in your late 30s, early 40s. We'd all had jobs in the corporate space. We could go back to jobs in the corporate space. We all had young families, mortgages, et cetera, et cetera. So we were very, very committed to making this a success.

10:23And so we felt that actually VC money was the best way to be successful in the market at the time to allow us the flexibility and the speed. And also, quite frankly, just not to be outrun by somebody who would come in with a lot of capital and then your hands are tied because you've not gone down that route.

10:40Amardeep Parmar:And obviously you've done like several rounds since then as well. Which rounds do you think were the easiest for you and which ones were a bit harder? I mean, the first round was incredibly hard just because you don't know what you're doing. You don't know the people. You have no reputation. We were all first-time founders. People don't know you. The second and second round, third round start to get a lot easier because actually you suddenly have VCs on your side, right? They are making introductions. They can share references. You've got a bit of a reputation. They're people that you've seen you, you know, once, twice, the third time round.

11:14They've met, tracked your business. You've also got access to the platforms that allow you to talk about the business. Once you've raised one or two rounds, you know, you start appearing on lists. So, yes, people are starting to track the business. You start being invited to speak in conferences, on panels, etc. And all of that builds momentum and visibility, which makes the subsequent rounds easier. Of course, your business has to be performing as well. And you're constantly chasing sort of, you know, what the market wants in terms of that business performance. And, you know, those thresholds and benchmarks have changed massively over the last six years.

11:59But it is easier because people actually know who you are. You've probably already got your list of people that you want to approach because you've built it out in your previous round. So, you know, there's certain things which are easier. You do also have to, however, prepare a lot more because there's just more of the business. So in terms of data room preparation and financial projections, they start to get a lot more involved very quickly. So the preparation phase is as much of a heavy lift as the actual fundraise, whereas in the early rounds it's, you know, what do we think? This seems like reasonable assumptions, you know, and we would do that in a room with just the three of us thrashing stuff out.

12:41suddenly it becomes a much more of a wider team effort as you progress.

12:46Amardeep Parmar:What were the most important metrics for you in the later stages or the later rounds? What were the message paying attention to? I mean, growth is always a key one, growth and the economics of your go-to-market. And I think, obviously, the recent AI explosion has sort of blown benchmarks out of the water on that for a lot of tech-enabled service businesses like ours. but yeah growth is a very very important one. Calibre of the logos that we're able to attract, client references, very very important for something that we do which is so sensitive and emotionally driven as well as a commercial case.

13:29What could we show in terms of evidence? Obviously we are a healthcare service so you know what do our outcomes actually look like? Is this something that people use? Is it something they like? Is it something that helps them? Very basic questions, but actually not so trivial to answer those in the healthcare context. Team, are we able to, you know, have we grown the team sensibly, sensibly yet aggressively when there was the market growth on the table? And the team composition, overall governance, I mean, governance also starts to become more of a heavier part of the deal as you go because again you've got just got more track record you've got more stakeholders um all of those sorts of things hello hello i hope you've enjoyed

14:17Amardeep Parmar:the show so far i'm amadit palmer co-founder of bay hq and the host of this show for those of you don't know bay hq is the community for high growth asian heritage founders and investors in the uk over 7 ,500 people have attended our events 200 people have been for our impact programs and obviously there's been over 250 episodes of this podcast if you want to join us and take part in the programs and come to the events go to bahiehq.com forward slash join we also just released our first ever book called startups for outsiders which you can get on amazon now and the link is in the bio hope to see you soon at our event hope you enjoy the rest of the episode And your role has changed quite a bit in the last couple of years, right?

15:04Amardeep Parmar:And obviously when you started out, then you realized, okay, CFO and fundraising are most important. And then, yeah, talk us through what's happened the last couple of years for you. So we raised our Series B at the end of 2022, which was really for our US expansion. So we launched in the US at the end of 22, 23, which was a very, very exciting phase. We serve some incredible clients in multiple geographies now. after that it became clear that you know we were able to hire high caliber management team at market rates this was amazing because between before that it'd been the three founders really sort of covering a lot of bases with a bit more of a junior team now we could actually hire senior managers who could take on whole functions and lead it obviously when you do that and you've been used to operating as three founders there is a bit of a system shift that needs to happen.

15:59And it became really clear that we needed one single CEO that all the functions reported into. It didn't make sense to have fragmented leadership because decision-making just became very difficult in that situation. We also hired an excellent CFO. So I was sort of a bit out of a day job, especially because it became clear that we didn't need to fundraise for some period of time. And so also there were some personal reasons where I needed to take a break. So I actually took a bit of a step back from the business on a full-time executive role. I stayed on as a non-executive chair. Obviously, I'd done a lot of the fundraisers, investor relations, as well as running, you know, I'd already sort of been nominal chair of the board.

16:41So I stayed on as chair of the board, managed the business through a period of time. But also it was a time when the health insurance market was going through a lot of turbulence. Prices were going up very high. And although we're not an insured product, it did have a knock on impact on new business growth for that period of time. And my co-founders started to explore what other opportunities there were for the business given our position in the market. And they started to work on a new product. It was a pure software product, not specifically healthcare related. I'm very much a healthcare person.

17:15I've spent my whole career in healthcare. And so I decided to take a bit of a step back. So I stepped out of that full-time exec role, that product actually did take off, started to take shape, but it became clear it was just a very, very different business to our core clinical services business. And so we've made the decision to spin that out as a standalone business, which we successfully did in May 2025. And I stepped back in as CEO of the original Pepe, healthcare services to employers, which has been fantastic. And as I mentioned, with a, you know, a very experienced and great senior management team there.

17:54So now my role is really, I guess, the more traditional CEO role, operating the business, obviously reporting out to shareholders and so on. But because we are now profitable and cash generative, we're able to invest a lot of things that we want to do in the opportunities that we see here in the UK and in other markets, such as the new neurodiversity service without relying on external financing. So that's a very privileged place to be. And we can also access other types of financing than we could before. And so, yes, so now my role has changed again, which is, you know, what keeps it interesting and fresh.

18:33So although it's been, you know, eight years, on the one hand, seems like an eternity. On the other hand, every year has been something very, very new for me, which keeps it fresh and exciting.

18:44Amardeep Parmar:So I'm going to ask you about the neurodiversity service in a moment, but for some founders who are listening right now who are thinking about maybe taking a break or stepping away for a bit and then potentially come back in in the future, have you any tips or advice for them? I think it really depends on the circumstances. For me, I mean, it was the fact that we were three co-founders. My co-founder wanted to do it as well, which allowed me to take that step back. so there was capacity and capability in the business it suited you know the business was going through a bit of a lull in new business but we actually retained all our existing clients and continued to grow with existing clients but it was a bit of suppressed growth so that that sort of lent itself to being able to be possible and I think I have to say look I didn't step out of the business with an intent of it's a year and I'm back I mean that would that's that I think that's very difficult to do.

19:40And especially not for that period of time, maybe a few weeks or, you know, a few months or whatever, if there's something very dense going on in your personal life. But the plan had been for me to leave and do something else. It's just that things evolved here. And, you know, I was obviously delighted to be back doing the core healthcare business. So it fitted what I wanted in terms of my own aspirations. But I think it was very, very circumstantial and not something that you can necessarily plan for in that way also you have to be prepared for whatever you know other decisions getting made without you which i think is very difficult for a founder to um to manage your expectations on that obviously if there are extenuating life circumstances that force that things have to be done but i wouldn't necessarily recommend it as a sort of planned activity.

20:35Amardeep Parmar:So you just said that neurodiversity service launch, right? Yeah. Can you tell us like, I guess what it is first, but also why does it make sense to the business and why did you choose this new route? Yeah. So neurodiversity is, and I'm sure we've all been aware of it, has become a topic that's come much more on people's radar, just as a matter of public awareness, it's also playing out in the workspace. So if we think back to what happened with menopause maybe five years ago, it started to become a topic of discussion on, you know, whatever, daytime TV, magazines, a lot on social media, that awareness flowed through to the workplace, people became much more aware of the signs and symptoms that coincided and not, you know, unsurprisingly, with women over 50 being the fastest growing demographic in the workplace.

21:26And suddenly it becomes not an individual discussion or a discussion at the kitchen table. It becomes a workplace discussion. We've started to see something similar in neurodiversity. There's a lot more awareness within the individuals. There's a lot more awareness within the workplace. And quite frankly, some sectors and some professions are very, very well suited for people who are neurodiverse. And so they have a disproportionately high proportion of their percentage who do identify as neurodiverse. But neurodiverse brains work differently and they can work differently under different circumstances.

22:00So your coping strategies and techniques might be a certain set of your toolkit when you're an individual contributor, maybe working on a very detail-oriented task or a very technical task, but actually your toolkit it needs to change when you become a people manager or, you know, even a senior leader. And so the neurodiversity service that we've built is really about providing you with access to experts, healthcare in line with the Pepe mission, in a simple, easily accessible way that's stigma free. So coming back to our core mission, so it's stigma free because it's offered in the workplace funded by your employer and you don't have to tell your HR team or manager that you're signing up for Peppy service for the neurodiversity service just as you wouldn't with any other Peppy service it's available to you download the app you register with your work email and then you sign up with your personal email as well so that we only communications to you don't go on your work email and then you have access direct access to our team Now, our neurodiversity team are BACP registered counsellors with specific extra training and experience in neurodiversity, both professional and personal in a lot of cases.

23:17And so they can be there to help you understand, you know, if you just suspect that you might have neurodiverse traits, what does neurodiversity actually mean? What are the different forms of it? How can that look? what are some coping strategies that might be helpful for you, both in terms of in the workplace, in terms of your own mental health, in terms of your diet, in terms of your exercise routine, all the lifestyle things that go around that. We can help you through some self-assessment tools that might suggest that you have traits and give you an indication of whether it's pursuing further clinical intervention.

23:58We have a partner who we can refer you into to get a clinical assessment if that's appropriate for you and you feel that that's going to be beneficial. You can have that conversation first with the team, though, before you decide to make that decision. And then if it is, say, ADHD, they can help you to explore whether the medication route was right for you or not. And for some people, it's absolutely not. As always with Pepe, it's about supporting informed choice. But then also, you know, then you come back into the world of pep and you've got the team basically at your fingertips through chat and consults and events and other things as and when you need it, as whichever direction your journey takes you.

24:39And it could be something like, you know, the arrival of a new baby suddenly tosses your need for order and routine for a spin, you know, then how are you going to cope with that? So it could be something at life, it could be something at work. We know that needs are ever changing. It's got so many things that are very similar to all our other peppy services. It's the common theme. It's the need for being able to access specialist healthcare with changing needs over time and things that can be, if left unsupported for periods of time, can be very disruptive both at work and in your personal life.

25:16So it's felt like a very natural fit to the peppy suite of services, which is why we decided to pursue it. And quite frankly, it's also where our clients have been telling us that they're spending their time and attention on. So the advantage of us having a very large network now of HR and benefits professionals that we work with is that we're very plugged into the market and we're talking to them literally every day. There are multiple conversations happening between a peppy team member and an HR and benefits professionals. So we can be very good at picking up signals of what's happening in the market and responding accordingly.

25:53Amardeep Parmar:That sounds amazing. I think like, I just, I think even with like entrepreneurship, right, there's so much more awareness of a lot of entrepreneurs are neurodivergent and a lot of it is undiagnosed and people aren't really sure. And I think I self-diagnose myself ADHD. And that's quite common. But I think like you said, it's where, when I was in the workplace, because obviously before you said I have a job, right? I kind of got a job now, you know what I And when you're in that kind of environment, you just don't like you just didn't really know, like, how do you navigate that? So those kind of services, they can be so important for many people who are like that now who like they know that they're really good at some stuff because they think a bit differently.