Gurgaon-based parenting platform mycity4kids raises $3 M from SIDBI Venture and YourNest

mycity4kids, an online platform for working mother, has raised $3 million in Series A round from SIDBI Venture Capital Limited and YourNest Angel Fund. According to the platform, funds will be deployed on building an indispensable mobile platform for mothers and targeting operational break-even in the next 12 months.

“Our expansion plans are geared towards becoming a daily-use product for every mother. Users can expect several mobile-led initiatives in that direction, starting with the recent launch of the mycity4kids Family Organizer app,” said Vishal Gupta, CEO, mycity4kids.

He adds that this round of funding will take care of the capital requirement for the next 24 months. The platform envisions to create the scale of market where five million mothers would use the platform every day in the next 18 months. Currently, it claims to have 2.5 million page views, 700 bloggers, and 75,000 service providers listed across nine cities. mycity4kids is already the platform of choice for parents.

Launched in 2012, the website targets mothers and helps them unearth exclusive and extensive databases of information on activities happening around for kids.

The company says that it is confident of achieving milestones because the quality content has led to a very low cost of customer acquisition, one of the more significant spends for any startup. “The delay in raising the Series A round has also led to a very high focus on monetisation through three distinct revenue streams, amounting to Rs 4 crore in 2014–2015. The brand-sponsored blogging segment is the fastest growing and contributes to 45 per cent of its revenue, with an impressive client-list that includes Kellogg, Amazon, HUL, Dettol, P&G, and Disney,” said Vishal.

On funding, Sunil Goyal, CEO of YourNest Angel Fund, said, “The platform has sharply mum-focussed content which includes the largest hyper-local discovery platform for kids’ resources and events. With over 50 million mums online in the country and doubling every three years, there is a plenty of room to grow the platform. Besides, the size and value of the mum demographic made us invest in mycity4kids three years back and we’re excited by their plans to become indispensable for every mother.”

YourStory take

The Indian advertising industry is worth Rs 50,000 crore, of which 65 per cent is targeted at mothers project the market size which content and discovery companies are eyeing at.

In kids and parenting segment, besides mycity4kids, many other platforms like Indiaparenting, KIDDS, Zenparent, Parentune, BabyChakra, etc., are targeting mothers, in many ways. In the past one year, these platforms have been able to show some traction as well and have raised funding.

In September last year, KIDDS, which brings together parents and providers in parenting-related fields such as experts, bloggers, kid edutainment, and other service providers, raised $500,000 from strategic investors.

In June this year, BabyChakra raises $600K from Mumbai Angels, Patni Family Office, and Singapore Angel Network.

In a USD 10-billion size market, there are various companies that have found their niche and offer different solutions in the parenting-kid segment. From parenting to consultation on child health issues to creating awareness on child mental illness to education and other areas, every app is fulfilling the different needs of parents via technology.

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