VANCOUVER — Toronto-based digital wellness platform LifeSpeak filed to go public on the Toronto Stock Exchange Monday under the symbol LSPK. 

According to its prospectus, the company, which offers online mental health services to more than 225 clients, saw its business accelerate during the pandemic. In the documents, CEO and founder Michael Held said the firm is “more excited than ever about our future.” 

LifeSpeak’s initial filing did not disclose how much it hopes to raise in the offering.

“We began to see the corporate well-being conversation become the norm over the last decade, and with the COVID-19 pandemic further accelerating the need for mental health and total well-being solutions, we are not looking back,” Held wrote in a letter in the company’s prospectus. A company spokesperson said in an email to The Logic that the company planned to announce the value of the IPO later this week, but declined to comment further.

LifeSpeak is the latest Canadian tech firm to try its luck on the public markets, following the likes of VerticalScope, Q4 and Softchoice. While Softchoice CEO Vince De Palma said it “was a great time” for the company to return to the TSX, others are taking a different route after some companies’ raises received a lukewarm response. A Dye & Durham management-led shareholder group said it wanted to take the firm private again less than a year after its IPO, and Vendasta shelved its public offering plans, raising $119.5 million in a new financing round, instead.

Founded in 2004, LifeSpeak started out by offering in-person wellness training sessions at grocery stores, office buildings and retail locations. It transitioned to a software-as-a-service platform in 2008, and now sells annual and multi-year subscriptions to clients around the world. The platform includes more than 2,300 videos, podcasts and articles on mental health, parenting, leadership, retirement and other topics. Its clients range in size from 1,000 to 200,000 employees, according to the documents.

“We have new clients subscribing and coming onboard at the fastest pace in our history, our partners and clients span the globe, our users are consuming the content at higher rates than ever before,” wrote Held.

LifeSpeak previously raised $42 million in September 2020, from investors including the Round13 Growth Fund, Kensington Capital Partners and Roynat Capital. It was LifeSpeak’s first institutional funding round, and it said at the time it planned to use the money to accelerate its growth. Round13 remains one of the company’s principal shareholders, according to the prospectus, along with Held Group and Bederman Group. The company did not disclose each shareholder’s equity stake as a percentage.

The prospectus said the company was profitable in its most recent financial year. For the year ending Dec. 31, 2020, LifeSpeak reported net income of $98,000 on more than $10 million in revenue. The previous year, it reported a net loss of $594,000 on about $7.4 million in revenue.

LifeSpeak believes it can continue to grow its profits. It has identified more than 250 enterprise-client opportunities worth up to an estimated $20 million in annual recurring revenue, as well as more than 40 clients that can embed its offering in their own solution for up to an estimated $260 million annually, the prospectus said. It sees an opportunity to benefit from a growing push for corporations to do more to address employee mental health.

The company plans to use the money to fuel its growth. It plans to spend roughly $2 million to $6 million to expand its platform, adding more services to allow it to secure more clients. It also plans to add additional languages and hire more staff over the next 24 months. It will use about $10 million to repay debts. LifeSpeak expects to spend the remaining proceeds on acquisitions.

Also Monday, Toronto-based digital-media company VerticalScope upsized its offering. The company, in which Toronto Star parent Torstar owns a 56 per cent stake, is looking to raise $125 million, according to its final prospectus, up from an expected $100 million.