Parenting app My First Five Years has raised 拢800,000 in its latest round of investment as it targets 250,000 paid subscribers inside three years.
The app was聽co-founded by entrepreneur Jennie Johnson聽MBE, who sold her previous business Kids Allowed to聽Kids聽Planet in January 2020 but came out of retirement to launch My First Five Years.
She launched the new venture in January 2021 with long-term friend and co-founder Alistair Bryce-Clegg and has grown it to 17 staff.
The 拢800,000 is the Didsbury startup鈥檚 third fundraise, following on from 拢1.4m in 2022 and 拢200,000 in seed funding in 2021.
The latest fundraise took three months to finalise and is from a mix of new and existing angel investors.
Johnson said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 a really important fundraise for My First Five Years. We鈥檙e two years old as a business and 2023 is a critical year for us as we demonstrate market traction and proof that parents are willing to pay for the app.
鈥淲e launched our 拢4.99-a-month subscription model eight weeks ago and have already had a really good response.
鈥淲e want to have 250,000 subscribers within three years and this latest funding will enable us to scale up our journey.
鈥淲hat鈥檚 nice is half the investors are new while the other half have invested before and that gives us a lot of confidence.
鈥淚 know that we have a world class idea that can transform the lives of parents with young children and our investors clearly believe it too.
鈥淭he app helps parents see and understand their child鈥檚 development.鈥�
The startup has identified more than 2,600 skills and activities children may acquire in their first five years and the app works by helping parents give their child the strongest foundations with their child鈥檚 physical, cognitive and emotional development in those聽all important聽first five years.
Johnson, who is herself a mother-of-three, said: 鈥淓verything on the app has been created by early year experts and recognises that every child is different, even twins.
鈥淭he purpose of My First Five Years is to help parents and help children. We鈥檙e not trying to make parenting harder, we鈥檙e trying to make it easier. That鈥檚 why the app has a bank of more than聽2,000 hints and tips.
鈥淭he trouble with parenting is we often repeat how we were parented. The app breaks those generational cycles.鈥�
Johnson said the company would be working with influencers to raise the profile of My First Five Years.
鈥淲e鈥檙e only interested in working with genuine influencers who download the app, use it and believe it,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t has to be authentic.鈥�