Meet bloss, the mommy duo startup that raised £1 million to make parenting life easier

They say it takes a village to raise a child. But how do we do it in the current times, especially in the post-covid world, where families have become even more isolated.

Enter bloss, a UK-based technology platform that connects users to parenting experts. Founded by the mommy duo of Stephanie Desmond and Binky Felstead, the startup has raised £1 million in a pre-seed round.

The funding was led by global early-stage VC Antler and backed by multiple impactful angel investors, including Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur Narry Singh, prolific footballer Andriy Shevchenko and British-Jamaican entrepreneur Alexandra Chong. The fresh funds will enable the startup to launch the bloss app later this year, expand the team and accelerate its global trajectory.

The startup was founded during the pandemic by Uber’s first 100-employee and member of the UK founding team, Stephanie Desmond, while she was pregnant with her third child, after partnering with mummy influencer and media personality, Binky Felstead. Following Stephanie’s fertility struggles and multiple IVF rounds to get pregnant, she discovered there was no easy way of finding trusted expert advice. The one-stop shop of experts with downloadable classes and advice, chat, booking options, and products, bloss aims to tackle challenges in parenting in the new age.

Parents can log into the chat and easily discover help by searching for an issue or asking any question. The backend matches them up with experts such as midwives, sleep consultants, nutritionists, and child psychologists, to answer their questions within 24 hours.

Talking about the launch of the app, Co-founder and CEO, Stephanie Desmond said: “We make parenting a bit easier by democratising access to hundreds of experts. From humble beginnings brainstorming around my kitchen table, we are now seeing a fast uptake of experts and users worldwide with an average growth of 88% month on month. Our goal is to help as many families as we can, at whatever life stage they are at. With the launch of the app, we hope to bring this even closer to reality."

Ollie Purdue, Partner, Antler VC said: “The platform needs to reach more parents around the world. We see bloss being such a valuable product to many homes and we look forward to seeing the positive impact it will have on families.”