Today, we are excited to announce that KidPass has raised $5.1 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Javelin Venture Partners, with participation from new and existing investors, including CoVenture, Y Combinator, TIA Ventures, Bionic Fund, Cocoon Ignite Ventures, and FJ Labs among others. In conjunction with the financing, we are also thrilled to announce that Jed Katz, Managing Director at Javelin, and Rachel Jarrett, President of Zola, will be joining our Board of Directors. We could not have asked for better investors and advisors to partner with to bring KidPass to the next phase of expansion.

With the new funding, we will now be able to significantly accelerate our growth through further investment in our technology platform, as well as reach thousands of new families as we launch additional cities. KidPass is currently live in New York, and will soon expand into new cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Chicago. This investment helps solidify KidPass as the market leader, allowing us to more rapidly pursue our mission of helping families discover and book the best activities for children of all ages.

Since our launch in January of 2016, KidPass has grown to become the largest kids activities booking site in New York. Over 20,000 families have signed up to use KidPass to book thousands of activities across 900 kids activity providers, including Gymboree, Kidville, Music Together, Super Soccer Stars, Physique Swimming, The Craft Studio, Chocolate Works, the Museum of Modern Art, YMCA, JCC, and many more. We started KidPass to solve a need that we had as new parents, and it’s been incredible to see the KidPass community grow to thousands of parents in New York City alone. Over 100,000 activities have been booked on KidPass to date. Our progress has been a testament to the need that KidPass is filling for parents.  Our Series A raise, and the new investors joining the KidPass team, are a huge endorsement for our mission to dramatically disrupt and improve the rapidly growing $30B kids activities industry.

For kids activity providers, we plan to further expand our capabilities in helping business owners and instructors with class management software, online registration, scheduling and payment tools. Our new Partner dashboard and class management interface for business owners is still in private beta, but is already being used by instructors on a daily basis to manage their activities.

“We are very excited to lead the KidPass Series A,” said Jed Katz, Managing Director at Javelin. “KidPass is treasured by busy parents who want to discover the best activities for their kids, get members-only prices, and enjoy a frictionless signup and payment process. But in addition to being a one-stop-shop for all types of kids activities, it’s also an entirely new and improved way for parents to explore their child’s interests through drop-in activities to see what they truly love before fully committing to semester-long programs. We love their smart, scalable business model and look forward to helping the KidPass team expand their valuable service across the country.”

Rachel Jarrett will also be joining the Board of Directors along with Jed Katz from Javelin. Rachel currently serves as President of Zola, an online wedding registry and planning start-up, and brings a wealth of expertise both with e-commerce and the children’s industry. She held previous roles as General Manager of Children’s at Gilt and VP of Kids & Specialty Products at Barnes & Noble. She started her retail career with FAO Schwarz and Toys “R” Us and also recently owned and operated her own kids-focused chocolate store. “I’ve experienced the children’s activities space from all sides of the market – as a parent of two young children, as a children’s activity provider, and as an advisor to the management team at KidPass,” says Rachel. “KidPass is filling a void in a fragmented market and solving real pain-points for parents and providers. They have an exceptional team, a compelling long term vision, and I’m excited to help scale the business as a Board member.”

With this new investment, we will continue to expand KidPass and establish ourselves as the go-to resource for parents across the U.S. This means being able to access the best kids activities, including exclusive classes, in-home activities, and family experiences for KidPass members. For kids activity providers, this means being the best service to help grow their business by getting brand exposure, new customers, and earning incremental revenue with no up-front costs and directly measurable returns versus traditional advertising channels. We have a lot planned for 2017, and are very excited to further expand our network of amazing partners and kids activities, launch new cities, and continue building a world class team.