Koru Kids has raised £3.5m in funding in a Seed round led by Forward Partners and Albion Capital.
The startup, based in London, seeks to improve the childcare sector by providing parents with after-school nannies, and also drew support from JamJar investments and several Angel investors.
Koru Kids’ technology enables it to join up the right after-school nanny for a family and then takes care of the paperwork. At the same time the company says it works with nannies, selecting appropriate candidates and training them.
The startup was founded in 2016 by Rachel Carrell, a former McKinsey & Company consultant, after she realised the how difficult it was to arrange childcare following the birth of her first child.
Carrell said of the funding: “We are incredibly pleased and proud to announce this successful raise of seed capital from some of London’s foremost VCs and Angel investors.
“Childcare is a crippling expense and also a major headache for many families. One mum I recently spoke to described her childcare arrangements as a ‘hamster wheel of hell’. With so many problems to solve, we’re incredibly excited to be able to use this investment to build the world’s best childcare service.
Working parents are the busiest people on the planet. They don’t have time to patch everything together. I wanted to build a childcare service which takes care of all the little details,” she added.
Matthew Bradley at Forward Partners highlighted how the lack of affordable childcare was a massive issue for young families in the UK.
“It’s a huge market but extremely inefficient and parents and children routinely suffer poor services and products. That’s just not good enough.”
“Koru Kids is already a superb business making massive inroads and helping to alleviate the problem. We’ve known Rachel for a few years now and we’re incredibly excited to be a part of the team.”
Koru Kids is allegedly growing at a rate of 30% monthly and is going after the £11bn childcare market.
Ed Lascelles at Albion Capital said his firm had been “extremely” impressed by Rachel and her team.
“Koru Kids has a rare passion and their compelling mission to provide accessible childcare to a huge, underserved market is already gaining rapid engagement with parents and nannies alike. We are delighted to be working with the team as they build on their early success,” concluded Lascelles.