Copenhagen-based Famly raises €15.9M from Zendesk’s founders, Just Eat’s ex-CEO, others

Copenhagen-based Famly, a digital platform for daycares, nurseries, and parents to manage communications, announced that it has raised $18M (approx €15.96M) in its Series A round of funding. With this, the company has raised over $20M (approx €17.74M) in funding to date.

The investment was led by Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE). SGE will join existing investors, including the founders of Zendesk and Just Eat’s ex-CEO.

Speaking on the development, Noa Woflson, Partner at SGE, says, “Famly has an exceptional relationship with its customers and provides the kind of window into their child’s day that every parent misses when they’re away from them. We look forward to working together with Famly as it brings its market leading product to new cities, communities, and educators around the world.”

Capital utilisation

Famly’s aim is to develop a smart platform that enables nurseries to improve and grow their childcare business with ease, bringing parents and nurseries closer together, and creating more time for the children.

Currently, the company has over 400,000 parent users and 63,000 educational staff users on its platform. It works with 3,500 early education sites across the UK, Germany, Scandinavia, and the US with 98 employees.

With the raised capital, the company claims it wants to double the size of its employees, expand its product-market fit in new markets, and open up to integrations and partners in the platform.

The platform for early childhood

Founded in 2013 by Anders Laustsen and Henrik Rasmussen, Famly is an all-in-one Saas platform that gives parents a social feed to get photos and updates about their child’s day, as well as helping childcare centres with managing admin tasks involved in running their business.

Famly’s platform gives parents a social media-style news feed with highlights from the day, as well as one place to message and collaborate with their children’s teachers to help continue their education at home. 

Meanwhile, billing in the app makes paying tuition quicker and secure – and stops educators from having to chase debt. The platform also helps centres run their business, allowing them to see everything from availability of care and financial reports to staff shifts, saving them time which can instead be focused on the children.

Laustsen says, “We’ve all heard it takes a village to raise a child, but for too long, the modern backbone of that village – nurseries, daycares, preschools, pre-kindergartens – haven’t been given enough thought or investment. We have a responsibility to support teachers with better tools, and to make sure they no longer simply keep parents ‘up to date’ with forgotten scrapbooks and email newsletters sent straight to spam. That’s why my favourite image of Famly is a blank tablet, screen off, job done, and a teacher back doing the important work with children.”

“Our mission from day one has been to help educators give their very best to their children every day and we will use this funding to help more educators do just that,” adds Laustsen.