London-based Koru Kids recently announced a £10m Series A investment, bring their total funding raised to £14.1 m. Koru Kids is a platform for finding and managing childcare.
The startup plans to use this latest investment to expand the company’s childcare offering with new products and services, expand to new cities and expand their team, all helping them realise their goal of improving the well-being of families.
The recent investment was led by Atomico and saw participation from previous investors AlbionVC, Samos, JamJar, Global Founders Capital, Forward Partners and 7Percent.
Childcare can be a real headache for families in the UK, as 91% of local authorities in London have significant gaps in the supply of childcare available to their communities. The cost of childcare in the UK has outpaced inflation by 2.5x in the last 15 years. But Koru Kids is offering a solution.
Koru Kids offers an online platform to help parents find and manage their childcare. The startup matches families with nannies, and then Koru Kids handles the administration, everything from contracts to payments and pensions, meaning childcare becomes hassle free. The business trains its own nannies in London, accepting less than 6% of applicants.
Koru Kids Founder Rachel Carrell said: “Despite being critical infrastructure for our society, childcare has been overlooked for far too long.
“We’ve already seen how profoundly our services can improve the well-being of families, as well as older adults and children who have a chance to connect with another generation while working. We’re excited for Atomico to help us scale our vision of building a completely new way of doing childcare so even more families can benefit.”
Niall Wass, Partner at Atomico, added: “Solving childcare for working parents is painful, time-consuming and expensive. We are backing Rachel and the Koru Kids team to build the digital solution to match families & their kids with top quality, trusted care – making it simpler, safer and cheaper for the family, whilst creating flexible and higher earning opportunities for childcare professionals. We believe in their goal of becoming the most trusted name in childcare.”
