India is fast becoming home to the so-called ‘Google parents’, where young couple searches for almost everything on Google concerning their newborn. The demand has kick started quite a many startups. They are becoming more and more verticalized with those in the parent advisory and infant health technology space mopping up much of the seed capital.
There have been almost a dozen of parenting startups in the past six months in two verticals. They provide advisory platforms and create products relating the infant healthcare sector. Mostly, they connect users to service providers. Pregnancy experts are also high on demand.
Experts are of the opinion that the top five metros have engaged most traction for the parenting startups among pregnant mothers and families. However, while they have verticalized and developed strong user acquisition strategies, strong business models are yet to be seen.
ParentLane has recently raised an undisclosed amount from former Flipkart executive Sujeet Kumar and other investors. It is a social networking app that provides advice to mothers post pregnancy.
Vijay Kumar, the cofounder of ParentLane, said, “There are a growing number of young parents who are looking for an easy platform to connect with peers, share experiences and gain knowledge during different stages of a child’s development.”
ZenParent is another such startup, which raised a $500,000 seed round from i2india Venture Factory. It focuses on providing parental advice ranging from medical issues to nutrition, fitness and psychology
The company has also partnered with a range of Indian and international brands including Himalaya in India. It works on a subscription-based model where they get revenues from the brand’s marketing budget.
Sumit Dhar, CEO at ZenParent, said, “Right now, 300,000 mothers are active, 80% of traction is from Indian metropolitan cities. But we are also seeing 20% traction from NRI’s.”
Some are into providing innovative information like My Child app. Harsh Songra, the cofounder of My Child app, said, “To determine the developmental milestone at every age, we have for instance curated 11 questions from the standard data of development prevalent in the medical book. Our algorithms are up to 90% accurate and can detect disorders in children aged 1to 24 months.”
The parenting startups industry, including both products and services, is estimated to be worth $20 million in India. According to VCCEdge, the domestic investors have spent up to $10 million in seed rounds for parenting startups with half a dozen deals closed in 2016, most of whom are present in the advisory vertical.
