Simple Habit Net Worth Revealed: From Startup to Million-Dollar Success [2025 Update]
Simple Habit is worth $20 million today. The meditation app now stands alongside industry giants like Calm, Headspace, and Insight Timer—a position few could have predicted back in 2016 when Yunha Kim first raised $2 million to launch her startup.
The numbers tell a compelling story. Simple Habit already had 500,000 users when Kim stepped into the Shark Tank. Fast-forward to 2025, and projections put the company's valuation at $120 million—a growth trajectory fueled by strategic acquisitions and smart expansion moves.
But here's where it gets interesting. The real momentum started after that Shark Tank episode aired. Simple Habit saw 75,000 downloads in a single night, followed by over a million downloads the next month. The user base continued climbing, reaching 7 million people by 2020 and generating an estimated $34 million in annual revenue.
This isn't just another app success story. It's a masterclass in how a focused wellness startup can scale from personal burnout solution to digital health powerhouse—and do it in less than a decade.
Simple Habit Net Worth in 2025: The Numbers Revealed
Simple Habit's financial story gets more compelling when you dig into the projections. The meditation app is on track to hit $120 million by 2025—a valuation that positions it as a serious contender in the wellness technology space.
How much is Simple Habit worth today?
The current numbers paint a clear picture. Simple Habit sits at an estimated $20 million today, while generating approximately $34 million in annual revenue through subscriptions and in-app purchases.
Getting to this valuation required strategic funding. The company has raised $12.60 million total across multiple rounds. The journey started small—a $120,000 seed round in December 2016, followed by $2.50 million in additional seed funding by May 2017. But the real momentum came from their Series A round in November 2018, when Foundation Capital led a $10 million investment.
What makes these numbers more impressive? The caliber of investors backing Simple Habit. Y Combinator and New Enterprise Associates don't typically invest in companies without solid fundamentals and clear growth potential.
Comparison with Simple Habit net worth 2024
The growth trajectory shows serious acceleration. Simple Habit's 2024 valuation hit $50 million, making the $120 million projection for 2025 a staggering 140% increase in just twelve months.
This wasn't always the pattern. The company's value climbed steadily from around $10 million in 2017 to today's $20 million—a more measured pace compared to what's projected ahead.
Here's how the valuation timeline breaks down:
- 2021: $50 million (early projection)
- 2023: $80 million
- 2024: $50 million (adjusted projection)
- 2025: $120 million (latest projection)
Those earlier projections versus actual performance show some variation, but the recent trend points to substantial acceleration.
What drives the current valuation?
Five key factors are fueling Simple Habit's rising value.
First, the subscription model creates predictable revenue. Recurring revenue streams are gold in the digital wellness space—they provide stability and make future performance easier to forecast.
Second, strategic brand partnerships are opening new revenue channels. These aren't just marketing collaborations. They're creating genuine business value and helping Simple Habit stand out in a crowded market.
Third, international expansion plans represent untapped potential. As mindfulness practices gain global traction, Simple Habit is positioning itself to capture that growth.
Fourth, the company's market leadership position provides significant leverage. When you're seen as a top player, partnership negotiations get easier, acquisition costs drop, and user loyalty strengthens.
Finally, Simple Habit's extensive content library and intuitive design create a sustainable competitive advantage. New users keep coming, existing users stay engaged, and the foundation for long-term growth gets stronger with each update.
The Origin Story: How Simple Habit Was Born
Every successful app has a moment of clarity behind it. For Simple Habit, that moment came during a particularly brutal stretch of 90-hour work weeks.
Yunha Kim's journey from Wall Street to wellness
Yunha Kim didn't set out to build a meditation empire. She started as a Wall Street investment banker before making the leap to tech entrepreneurship in her early twenties with Locket, an Android lock screen app. The venture attracted serious money—over $3 million from investors including Turner Broadcasting, Great Oaks, and even Tyra Banks.
But success came at a cost. Kim found herself working nearly 90 hours weekly, leading to complete burnout by her second year. "When I was starting Locket, I was working 24/7," Kim revealed. The intense pressure didn't just affect her work—it impacted her relationships and overall well-being.
After successfully selling Locket to mobile shopping startup Wish in July 2015, Kim could have taken a well-deserved break. Instead, she enrolled at Stanford Graduate School of Business. It was there, reflecting on her burnout experience, that the seeds for her next venture began to take root.
The idea behind Simple Habit
During her most stressful periods at Locket, Kim discovered meditation as a coping mechanism. "I started with just 5 minutes a day," she explained, "I became a huge fan". The practice changed everything—her relationship with stress, her quality of life, her entire approach to managing pressure.
As Kim explored existing meditation apps, she spotted a gap. Most platforms featured only one teacher or personality. Her entrepreneurial instincts kicked in. What if meditation could work like Spotify—a platform where users could browse different teachers, access bite-sized sessions for busy professionals, and find specific content for different situations and moods?
Kim officially founded Simple Habit in Spring 2016. Unlike many app developers focused purely on technology, she collaborated with a Harvard psychologist to ensure the content was science-based rather than filled with what she called "new-age jargon like 'opening your chakras'".
Early funding and Y Combinator support
Despite her prior startup success, Kim chose to bootstrap Simple Habit for its first year. "I wanted to prove the business model first and see a product-market fit," she explained. The careful approach paid off when user feedback started pouring in.
"We started receiving user emails and testimonials saying Simple Habit was a life-changing product," Kim shared. This validation prompted her to drop out of Stanford and focus on making Simple Habit "THE destination people trust for their mental wellness".
The company reached a crucial milestone when accepted into Y Combinator's winter 2017 batch. "Y Combinator has an incredible network of entrepreneurs and mentors — many of whom have used Simple Habit and directly fall into our target audience," Kim noted.
Y Combinator proved to be the launchpad Kim needed. By 2020, just four years after launch, the platform had helped over 5 million people manage stress and anxiety—setting the foundation for its current $20 million valuation and projected climb to $120 million by 2025.
Inside the Shark Tank Pitch
The Shark Tank appearance became Simple Habit's most controversial moment—and arguably its most valuable marketing win. When Yunha Kim stepped into the tank during Season 9's premiere episode, she carried a meditation app valued at $12 million. What happened next turned into one of the show's most dramatic confrontations.
What Yunha Kim asked for
Kim's request was bold: $600,000 for just 5% equity. Her pitch opened with an invitation for the Sharks to meditate with her—a move that immediately set the tone for everything that followed.
The numbers behind her confidence were solid. Simple Habit had 500,000 users and $750,000 in annual revenue at the time of filming in summer 2017. The freemium model charged $11.99 monthly or $99 annually, with 5,000 premium subscribers already converting. Kim projected $5 million in revenue for the following year.
She'd already raised $2.8 million at a $10 million valuation and had only used $500,000 of that funding. From Kim's perspective, she was offering the Sharks a chance to join a proven winner.
Sharks' reactions and offers
Mark Cuban wasn't buying it. He questioned Kim's valuation right during her meditation exercise. Daymond John piled on, wondering why she needed the Sharks at all, suggesting she was "taking an opportunity away from a business that really needs the money".
Then Cuban crossed a line. He called Kim a "gold digger," claiming she was only there for publicity. The comment visibly shocked Kim and created immediate tension in the tank.
Guest shark Richard Branson strongly disagreed with Cuban's assessment. The disagreement escalated until something unprecedented happened: Branson threw a glass of water in Cuban's face. Cuban immediately retaliated, creating one of Shark Tank's most memorable moments.
Despite the chaos, Branson and Robert Herjavec saw potential. They jointly offered $300,000 each for 10% each (totaling $600,000 for 20%). When Kim became emotional, Herjavec reduced their ask to 15%.
Why the deal didn't happen
Kim held her ground. She couldn't accept lower valuations due to obligations to existing stakeholders. Even when Herjavec offered a reduced share of 7.5% each, Kim declined.
"I held my ground and left the show without taking a deal," Kim later reflected, adding that "that heavily televised moment taught me important lessons in leadership". Her instincts proved right—Simple Habit continued growing independently before being acquired by wellness marketplace Ingenio in 2023.
The dramatic pitch delivered massive exposure despite Cuban's controversial remarks. Today, the app has over a million downloads on Google Play alone and generates approximately $34 million annually—far exceeding that $5 million projection Kim mentioned in the tank.
Growth After Shark Tank: The Real Success Story
The Shark Tank exposure created what industry insiders call the "Shark Tank effect"—an immediate visibility surge that changed everything for Simple Habit almost overnight.
Those 75,000 downloads on the night the episode aired in October 2017 were just the beginning. Downloads hit 1 million by November 2017, and the momentum didn't slow down.
The user base expanded rapidly:
- 2018: Reached 2 million users primarily through word-of-mouth
- 2020: Surpassed 5 million users across platforms
- By late 2020: Kim reported helping over 7 million people manage stress and anxiety
Simple Habit maintained a consistent 95% monthly growth rate during these early stages, establishing its position as a leading meditation platform.
Revenue growth mirrors user success
The financial performance followed the same trajectory. Simple Habit jumped from approximately $750,000 in annual recurring revenue at the time of the Shark Tank pitch to generating roughly $34 million annually by 2024. The company maintained a healthy conversion rate with 5% of sign-ups becoming paying subscribers.
This performance positioned Simple Habit for its $120 million valuation projection for 2025. The timing couldn't be better—the meditation app market was valued at $1.1 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach $3.6 billion by 2030.
Kim's pandemic pivot reveals strategic insight
Kim's business instincts proved most valuable during the pandemic. User data revealed something surprising: sleep-related content made up only 10% of Simple Habit's offerings yet generated 70% of user engagement.
Rather than ignore this insight, Kim acted on it. She launched Sleep Reset as a complementary offering, and the results spoke for themselves. Users reported gaining an average of 88 minutes of sleep and requiring 52% less time to fall asleep. Within nine months of launching, Sleep
Reset was on track to generate $1.86 million in annual revenue. This strategic move caught the attention of Ingenio, a wellness marketplace that acquired Simple Habit in March 2023—further accelerating its path toward that $120 million valuation by 2025.
What Fuels Simple Habit's Value Today
Simple Habit's path to $120 million isn't built on hope—it's powered by three revenue engines that work in concert to drive sustainable growth.
Subscription model and pricing
The freemium approach does more than generate revenue. It creates a conversion funnel that turns casual users into committed customers. Simple Habit offers a free basic version, then presents premium tiers at $11.99 monthly or $99.99 annually. Power users can secure lifetime access for $399.99.
The magic happens in the conversion rate: 5% of users upgrade to paid subscriptions. That might sound modest, but it represents a predictable, recurring revenue stream that scales with user acquisition.
Premium subscribers unlock over 2,000 guided meditations tailored for specific scenarios—from pre-meeting anxiety to difficult conversations. This depth of content creates sticky engagement that keeps subscribers active and reduces churn.
Brand partnerships and collaborations
Subscription revenue tells only half the story. Simple Habit's "Meditate at Work" program taps into corporate wellness budgets, generating $5,000-$25,000 annually per client depending on company size and customization needs.
Fortune 500 companies increasingly view employee mental health as a retention and productivity strategy. Simple Habit positions itself as the solution, creating an entirely separate B2B revenue channel that diversifies income beyond individual consumers.
These partnerships also provide valuable data on how meditation impacts workplace performance—insights that can inform product development and marketing messaging.
Acquisition by Ingenio and its impact
The March 2023 acquisition by wellness marketplace Ingenio changed Simple Habit's growth equation. Ingenio didn't just provide capital—it delivered access to an established user base and cross-promotional opportunities across multiple wellness brands.
This strategic move accelerates Simple Habit's path toward its $120 million projection by creating synergies that would have taken years to develop independently. Instead of competing for attention in a crowded marketplace, Simple Habit now operates within an ecosystem designed to amplify its reach and impact.
Conclusion
Kim's story proves a simple truth: the best business opportunities often emerge from personal pain points. What started as one entrepreneur's search for stress relief became a platform helping over 7 million people manage anxiety and find balance.
The Shark Tank controversy that could have derailed Simple Habit instead became its launching pad. Kim's decision to walk away from the Sharks—despite the public criticism—demonstrates the kind of strategic thinking that separates successful founders from those who settle for less.
But Simple Habit's success isn't just about one pivotal TV moment. The company built lasting value through smart business fundamentals: a subscription model that converts users, corporate partnerships that diversify revenue streams, and content that keeps people engaged.
When the pandemic hit, Kim's data-driven pivot to sleep content showed the agility that separates market leaders from followers.
The 2023 Ingenio acquisition positions Simple Habit for its next growth phase. Access to a broader wellness ecosystem and cross-promotional opportunities creates the foundation for reaching that $120 million valuation projection.
Simple Habit now competes directly with Calm and Headspace—not as an underdog, but as an equal. The meditation app market continues expanding, and Simple Habit has secured its position among the winners.
For founders building in the wellness space, Kim's journey offers a clear playbook: solve your own problem first, stay focused on business fundamentals, and don't let critics derail your vision.
FAQs
Q1. What is Simple Habit's current net worth?
Simple Habit's current net worth is estimated at $20 million, reflecting its significant growth in the meditation app market.
Q2. How has Simple Habit's valuation changed since its Shark Tank appearance?
Since appearing on Shark Tank in 2017 with a $12 million valuation, Simple Habit has experienced substantial growth, now worth $20 million with projections reaching $120 million by 2025.
Q3. Who founded Simple Habit and what inspired its creation?
Yunha Kim founded Simple Habit in 2016, inspired by her personal experience using meditation to cope with the stress of her previous startup, Locket.
Q4. What happened to Simple Habit after its Shark Tank appearance?
Despite not securing a deal, Simple Habit experienced explosive growth after Shark Tank, gaining 75,000 new downloads in one night and reaching 1 million downloads the following month.
Q5. Has Simple Habit undergone any major changes recently?
Yes, in March 2023, Simple Habit was acquired by Ingenio, a wellness marketplace, which is expected to further accelerate its growth and expand its reach in the digital wellness space.