2 pregnant cofounders raised $9 million for a startup that tackles a universal problem for millennial parents

The online marketplace aggregates data from thousands of childcare centers across 7,000 US cities, and filters for availability, location, hours of operation, and children's ages.
Winnie just got a cash infusion of $9 million in Series A funding to build more tools for the childcare providers on their app.
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In the search for safe and affordable childcare, the best option available for parents is often a Google search.

It took two former Googlers to come up with something better.

Winnie is a tool for finding daycares and preschools nearby. Parents can access tuition rates, licensing status, and reviews left by other parents, as well as search openings at local centers. The startup has raised a fresh $9 million in Series A funding to build more tools for providers on the service, after reporting a year of explosive growth.

Founders Sara Mauskopf and Anne Halsall, who were both pregnant at the time of fundraising, say childcare "is no longer optional."

"The vast majority of families need it, and it's really hard to find, hard to afford, and hard to assess quality," said Mauskopf.

The share of households where both parents work hit 66% in 2016, up from 49% in 1970, according to the Pew Research Center. The shift has created a boon for the daycare industry, with revenue expected to top $57 billion in 2019 and growing 4% year over year.

Winnie aggregates data from state licensing authorities in 20 states and has a database of more than 150,000 daycares and preschools. Parents can filter their search by location, hours of operation, age of children, and type of facility, like a home or center. Not all providers update their pages for "immediate" and "upcoming" openings, which means parents may have to call around to check availability.

The company toyed with a "premium" membership for parents, but Mauskopf said they could drive more business to providers by making search free. Instead, the childcare centers can pay a monthly fee that gives them better visibility in ads and searches.

winnie childcare finder Winnie

When the founders were building a database for their first market, they found as many as half of the 5,000 providers in the San Francisco Bay Area didn't have a website or social media page. They noticed that the childcare centers with an online presence often charged more, because they probably saw more inbound demand.

"Digital is not their core competency, it's caregiving," Mauskopf said.

Though they also worked at Google, Mauskopf and Halsall met on the product team at Postmates. As new moms, they swapped horror stories about the difficulties of finding childcare in the Bay Area.

The company they set out to create helps parents "solve the most visible problems" they face, Halsall said. At the start, Winnie positioned itself as a sort of Yelp for parents, where they could discover family-friendly restaurants, activities, and playgrounds.

"Through the process of building that product, we saw that there was one classification of data that was the most in-demand" childcare, Halsall said. The founders decided in 2017 to narrow focus around a searchable directory of daycares and preschools.

Winnie has reached more than four million unique visitors since its founding in 2016. The recent cash injection will allow the company to build more tools for childcare providers helping them market their business, complete enrollment paperwork, process payments, maintain a waitlist, and fill temporary openings, Mauskopf said.

The company's Series A round, led by female-led venture capital firm Rethink Impact, brings total funding to $15.75 million.

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