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Gumtree founder contributes to £600k funding in nanny sharing startup

Nanny sharing platform Koru Kids has officially launched today on the back of a £600k seed funding round that included the co-founders of Entrepreneur First and Michael Pennington, founder of Gumtree.

Funding in the startup, dubbed Airbnb for childcare, was led by Global Founders Capital and included contribution from London and San Francisco’s 7percent Ventures and Alice Bentinck and Matthew Clifford of Entrepreneur First.

Founded by Rachel Carrell, the Euston-based startup’s platform helps to facilitate nanny sharing between families who have a full-time nanny and those looking for a part-time nanny to look after their children.

It claims that nannies could potentially earn an extra £5,000 to £6,000 per year by sharing their duties for just 25 hours per week, and says it has already attracted over 1,000 users just from word of mouth alone.

Koru Kids has placed an emphasis on matching families with nannies rather than just providing a simple listing for users to choose from.

Parents enter their postcode and specific requirements into the system and the platform returns the nannies which best fit their needs.

Speaking to the Evening Standard following the platform’s official launch, Carrell explained: “We made a conscious decision that this would be a matching service rather than a listing.

“Parents kept saying they didn’t want yet another website they had to trawl through — that was the word that kept coming up, ‘trawl’. This is much more time-efficient for them.”

While currently only available in the capital, the startup is already plotting moves into international markets after receiving requests from cities including San Francisco and New York.

Following the closure of its seed funding round, Gumtree founder Pennington commented: “Through Gumtree I’m very aware how parents struggle to find quality childcare and nannies.

“Koru Kids is a great opportunity for parents to socialise their children with other children from like-minded families at the same time as reducing the cost of having a nanny.”

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