Most corporate wellness programs fail because they are optional. They are a perk, a benefit, a box to check. London-based Stayf, founded in 2023, is betting that the only way to move the needle on burnout is to make wellbeing a systematic part of the workday, and to pay people to participate. The company’s B2B SaaS platform offers over 20 gamified activities, from gym workouts to meditation, and rewards employees with points for taking part [Stayf, retrieved 2026]. The goal is to shift the conversation from treating illness to rewarding healthy behavior, a positioning that also nudges the product into the health-insurtech category [LinkedIn/vladimir-tarakanov, retrieved 2026]. For a procurement officer, the question is whether this approach can drive the 50-80% engagement rates the company claims, and what that engagement is actually worth at renewal [LinkedIn/Stayf, retrieved 2026].
A wedge of systematic engagement
Stayf’s product is a digital platform that lets companies create and manage wellness challenges. Employees earn points for activities, which can be redeemed for rewards, while managers get dashboards to track participation. The company’s public materials emphasize moving “beyond perks” to create “systemic wellbeing” integrated into business processes [Stayf, retrieved 2026]. This is a pragmatic, if ambitious, wedge into the enterprise. Instead of selling a library of mindfulness content or a one-off fitness challenge, Stayf is selling a configurable system of engagement. The bet is that HR and operations leaders, increasingly accountable for burnout and retention metrics, will pay for a tool that promises to make wellbeing operational and measurable, not just aspirational.
The team behind the behavior change
The founders bring a mix of entrepreneurial grit and venture capital perspective to the problem. Max Zhurilo, the public face of the company, is a serial founder in the fitness and mass-participation event space, having previously launched I Love Supersport and IRONSTAR [EU-Startups, March 2024]. His co-founder, Kirill Primaka, was a founding-team member at investor Yellow Rocks and worked as a VC at Peak State Ventures [EU-Startups, March 2024]. This combination suggests a team that understands both building consumer engagement (Zhurilo) and the metrics that attract early-stage capital (Primaka). Their $700,000 pre-seed round, led by AltaIR Capital with participation from Yellow Rocks and Smart Partnership Capital, closed in March 2024 [EU-Startups, March 2024]. The round also positioned Stayf as the first company backed by the ‘Pre-Seed to Succeed’ program, a syndicate offering funding and mentorship [EU-Startups, March 2024].
| Founder | Role | Key Background |
|---|---|---|
| Max Zhurilo | Co-Founder | Serial founder of I Love Supersport, IRONSTAR; Oxford alumnus. |
| Kirill Primaka | Co-Founder | Founding team at Yellow Rocks; former VC at Peak State Ventures. |
The crowded field of corporate care
Stayf is entering a market with established players and well-funded challengers, each with a slightly different take on employee wellbeing. The competitive set is less about feature parity and more about which wedge into the organization proves most durable.
- Tictrac. A more mature platform that combines personalized content with insurer partnerships, having raised $7.5 million in 2020 [TechCrunch, June 2020]. Its distribution through healthcare providers like Aviva presents a high barrier to entry.
- Wellbees. An international platform reporting over 100,000 users, which raised a $2.2 million seed round in 2022 [Tech Funding News, May 2022]. It represents a direct, scaled competitor in the holistic platform space.
- MAP Wellbeing & Wellbeing Warrior. Smaller, likely regionally-focused players that indicate a fragmented long-tail of solutions [LinkedIn, Unknown].
For Stayf, differentiation will hinge on proving that its gamified, reward-centric model drives materially higher and more consistent engagement than these alternatives, and that this engagement directly impacts attrition or healthcare cost metrics an enterprise finance team cares about.
What enterprise buyers need to see next
The next twelve months are about validation. The pre-seed capital is for building and early sales, but the real test is whether Stayf can convert its engagement claims into enterprise contracts with clear ROI. The ideal customer profile here is a mid-sized UK or European company with a progressive HR leader, one who is budget-owner for wellness programs but is also under pressure to show quantitative results to finance. They are likely disillusioned with low-engagement, one-size-fits-all EAPs (Employee Assistance Programs) and are seeking a tool that feels native to how their teams actually work.
The realistic competitive set extends beyond dedicated wellness platforms. Stayf is also competing against the internal development resources of a large company that could build its own points system, and against the inertia of HR teams simply renewing their existing, underperforming vendor contracts. The company’s path to scaling ACV will depend on moving upmarket, where the procurement cycle is longer but the budgets are larger and the need to systematize care is more acute. For now, Stayf’s bet is that rewarding the gym visit is the first step to preventing the burnout claim.
Sources
- [EU-Startups, March 2024] London-based digital wellbeing platform Stayf raises €650k to prevent employees from burnout | https://www.eu-startups.com/2024/03/london-based-digital-wellbeing-platform-stayf-raises-e650k-to-prevent-employees-from-burnout/
- [TechCrunch, June 2020] Tictrac secures $7.5M to expand employee wellbeing platform as WFH balloons | https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/02/tictrac-secures-7-5m-to-expand-employee-wellbeing-platform-as-wfh-baloons/
- [Tech Funding News, May 2022] Employee wellbeing platform Wellbees, led by a female serial entrepreneur, pockets $2.2M after UK launch | https://techfundingnews.com/employee-wellbeing-platform-wellbees-led-by-a-female-serial-entrepreneur-pockets-2-2m-after-uk-launch/
- [LinkedIn, Unknown] MAP Wellbeing | https://www.linkedin.com/company/map-wellbeing
- [LinkedIn, Unknown] Wellbeing Warrior | https://www.linkedin.com/company/wellbeing-warrior
- [LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] Vlad Tarakanov - Ghirardelli Chocolate Company | https://www.linkedin.com/in/vladimir-tarakanov/
- [Stayf, retrieved 2026] Stayf, Corporate Wellbeing Program | https://www.stayf.app/
- [Stayf, retrieved 2026] Beyond Perks: How Stayf Creates Systemic Wellbeing That Works | https://www.stayf.app/beyond-perks-how-stayf-creates-systemic-wellbeing-that-works
- [LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] Stayf Company Page | https://www.linkedin.com/company/stayf-wellbeing/