Amsterdam-based Peekabond, a child-friendly asynchronous video messaging app, announced on Monday, December 12, that it has raised an undisclosed amount led by new investor Joanna Invests.
Other investors who participated in the round include Ellevate, a community of international female IT professionals, angel investor Martine Rooth, co-founder of Smiler, and an early angel investor in TestGorilla.
The Dutch startup says it will use the funds to accelerate the technological and content development of the Peekabond app.
The announcement comes after the startup raised over €200k in its pre-seed round from Daniel Gebler (CTO of Picnic), Head Start Ventures, a handful of other angel investors, and a Dutch Family Office.
Peekabond: What you need to know
Founded by Alyea Sandovar, Anieke Lamers, and Vincent van den Noort in 2021, Peekabond helps families with young children to feel connected to loved ones through its “ethical” social, mobile platform.
The platform helps children build deep bonds with family and loved ones at a distance through asynchronous connection and with content inspiration such as interactive lessons, activities, games, stories, and songs.
The Peekabond app offers daily playful activities based on scientific child development milestones.
Anieke Lamers says, “We’re very happy to diversify our cap table with new female investors close to our target group of expat families, especially moms. What I’m most proud of is that in this round, we have received investments from several founders I’m inspired by, that I have invested in, or that I have worked with in the past when I was still working as a VC investor for Rubio.vc and RTL Ventures. So this is a vote of confidence and gives a boost of new energy.”
Investor
Founded by Claire Tange, who has extensive experience working with startups as CFO (for a.o. Fastned and Dott) is an active (angel) investor herself, Joanna Invests is on a mission to create a more equal and inclusive investment world.
In May, we at Silicon Canals wrote how Joanna Invests helps fund female entrepreneurs, thereby breaking down the barriers for women to start investing and giving more access to capital for female founders.
Joanna Invests offers investment opportunities in startups for a minimum of €2,000. The team at Joanna Invests focuses on funding early-stage female-founded companies in any sector.
The investment in Peekabond is Joanna Invests’ third deal this year, and the portfolio also includes We Are Eves and Quan. They have invested alongside renowned investors like Tablomonto, HearstLab and Y Combinator.
Claire Tange says, “The founding team at Peekabond consists of experienced professionals dedicated to making Peekabond a success. Their combination of experience in venture capital, supporting entrepreneurs, tech, product development, and child development science is very strong. Together, they form a winning team and we believe that they will be able to build a successful company. We are excited to be part of their journey.”
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