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We have fintech, agtech, and now (of course)…babytech or even fam tech.

In fact, countless baby technology products, apps, gadgets and services are on the market (and have been for longer than a minute). But the demand for these products is stronger than ever as millennials lean into the comfort of technical solutions when starting families.

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However, some experts in the sector say it was not always easy to get a product on the market. Years ago, babytech was considered a niche market that few investors understood or wanted to get into. Today, anyone considering adding to their family can find technology for everything from fertility to potty training and beyond.

鈥淭his is now a fundamental category because what is more important than how to set a family up for success?鈥� , partner at , told 附近上门 News.

Now that the sector is addressing families of all shapes, sizes and cultures, there is space for real innovation, she said.

As a result, many startups are successfully raising funds. Just this week, London-based , a social network for women, closed a $12 million Series A funding round led by . Its Trying To Conceive community has grown to 1.6 million users since forming last November, according to the company.

And some are even being acquired. In late March, Los Angeles-based announced the to , a baby gear rental service. Tot Squad鈥檚 self-described mission is to improve access to pre- and post-natal services for parents and children, 鈥渇rom pregnancy to the playground.鈥� The company says it will now focus on offering virtual services, including doula coaching, lactation support and sleep consultation, among other things.

Feeding children

One popular area of baby technology is nutrition and health, Schulman said. In fact, she recently led New York-based infant nutrition company 鈥檚 $70 million of funding.

Attention to childhood nutrition is driven by a generation of parents who have grown up with an ease of technology and a focus on their own nutrition and health, something they are paying attention to with their children, she added.

Entrepreneur Katie Thomson can relate.

The registered dietitian, who was Starbucks鈥� first nutritionist, had her first child in 2008. While cruising the baby aisle in the grocery store, she noticed most of the prepackaged meals did not seem balanced, but rather were heavy on fruit and applesauce.

鈥淭hat started a fire in me to create a better solution,鈥� Thomson said.

She left Starbucks in 2010 and went on a mission to find which nutrients were needed for every stage of development so she could create a meal that was actually 鈥渟quare and balanced.鈥� Thus, San Francisco-based , also known as Square Baby, was born.

鈥淲e really focused on building our customer trust so that our square meals were based on nutrition science, not just marketing and lip service,鈥� Thomson said.

Using her background in nutrition standards, she took a few years to develop a foolproof system for meals that are customizable and interchangeable by age range. Thomson also created specialized options for children with food allergies, nutritional needs or dietary restrictions.

Subscription meals are available on the Square Baby website with plans starting at $79 for 14 meals, and the company follows the baby鈥檚 growth to recommend meals and future products.

Square Foods, which formally launched its products in 2018, is working on its seed round, which Thomson expects to be about $2 million and will put the company on a path to profitability.

鈥淲hen we started, we were shipping just to California, but now we have expanded to eight states,鈥� Thomson said. 鈥淲e are bringing in a new partner that will enable us to soon ship to the lower 48 states without losing the premium product quality that is important to us.鈥�

Following the trends

Forbes estimated in 2019 that the U.S. was about $46 billion, and reported that investors had pumped some $500 million in funding into companies within the sector since 2013.

In fact, the industry is evolving so quickly that some experts say the term 鈥渂abytech鈥� has outgrown itself. They are now using the term family technology, or 鈥渇am tech,鈥� to describe the full lifecycle of having children.

And knowing what products people like, and what will happen in the babytech marketplace before it happens, is gold.

Robin Raskin and Jill Gilbert run the at the Consumer Electronics Show. For the last five years, the pair have seen the latest and greatest baby technology that includes strollers, sleep machines, breast pumps and baby monitors.

鈥淲e wanted to shine a light on new millennial parents, who were data-driven and wanted information on everything,鈥� Raskin said. 鈥淎 lot of the products are things to make parenting easier, but also anything to keep the baby healthy.鈥�

Gilbert said when the summit started, the babytech market was still very young and people were trying to understand it.

鈥淓ven [health care tech giant] Philips was trying to understand the market while inventing things for it,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here are so many experimental things and technology such as artificial intelligence and sensors that are speaking more toward the customer. There are still questions around if these are luxury items or necessary.鈥�

Baby products range in price, and while Raskin said most items under $100 sell better, Gilbert admitted she would spend $1,000 for a product to help her son sleep if she knew it worked.

Meanwhile, started tapping into the latest babytech products nine years ago to start the online universal baby registry, . At that time, she had a newborn son and a goal to help parents register and buy products across all retail channels for their newborns.

The Oakland, California-based company attracted 1 million users last year and has amassed a library of custom content and editorial based on trends among users, she said.

鈥淓verything is to serve and help pregnant women and expectant families from all income levels across the entire life stage,鈥� Gordon said. 鈥淲e can see all that is happening across all retailers. So we add products–most are direct-to-consumer brands–and people who want those technology or innovative products are often early adopters.鈥�

Gadgets continue to gain popularity, especially innovative technology that helps babies sleep through the night, “a priceless thing,” she said. She points to companies such as , Lumi by Pampers, 鈥檚 Snoo and 鈥檚 Rest.

Finding the next big thing

True Ventures Partner started Hatch鈥擧atch Baby鈥攊n 2012 with her husband, David. Their first product was a night light and sound machine to help babies and children get rest.

As the Menlo Park, California-based company grew, Hatch decided to focus on the whole family and in January at the Consumer Electronics Show as an all-in-one sleep solution for adults. Crady-Weiss said the product will unveil this week.

鈥淪leep is a huge issue,鈥� Crady-Weiss said. 鈥淲e have scaled with babies in a lovely way so that when it comes to sleep, we can go beyond baby to mom and dad.鈥�

About , according to the Centers for Disease Control, which means companies have nearly that many new customers annually to get their products in front of.

As babies age out of one area, Crady-Weiss said, it is nice when a company can offer products or services that grow along with the baby and their experiences.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 an interesting problem for entrepreneurs: How to make the market bigger than the 4 million babies born, or how to extract a ton of value from those babies,鈥� she said. 鈥淚f you can solve the problem and forge a long customer relationship, you can attract thousands of dollars from one customer.鈥�

For Crady-Weiss, finding the next deal is all about the founder–someone with an advantage over the competition鈥攚ho could have huge potential in the market and the right deal size.

One of the challenges to investing in babytech is being ready to spend 10 years on the board of the company, she said.

鈥淭here are not a ton of investors who are excited about babies, but many are bullish on the prospect of being on the board of a babytech company,鈥� she added.

Working with babytech companies is something does not mind doing.

The chief growth officer at Atlanta-based consumer goods company for the last three years, Butler created in 2018. It鈥檚 an early-stage venture capital firm investing in parenting problem-solving technology.

Entrepreneurs becoming parents themselves but wanting to continue to live the way they always have are innovating, he said. Butler groups problems into four spaces: daily grind, working parents, child鈥檚 potential, and health and safety.

One example he gave is what to do with all of the baby gear that a parent buys but gets outgrown.

鈥淢ost people don鈥檛 want to put it on Craig鈥檚 List because they don鈥檛 want strangers coming to their house,鈥� Butler said. 鈥� makes it easier to buy and sell used gear by having a volunteer network that will pick up the items, refurbish them and list them for a cut of the sale.鈥�

Be Curious led a seed round for the Arvada, Colorado-based company in 2019.

Going after investor dollars

Another company both Crady-Weiss and Butler said they have their eyes on is , started in 2015 by and .

Similar to Peanut, the Menlo Park-based startup provides an online community aimed at making mothers鈥� lives better. In April, Motherly round of financing led by .

But, five years ago, Koziol and Tenety were two millennial moms trying to get venture money for their concept. Investors told them to be a products-first company, but they wanted to begin with content instead.

鈥淧eople told us 鈥榞ood luck with that,鈥� 鈥� Koziol recalls. 鈥淚 get it, but being an entrepreneur means having the passion and persistence to know that when they say you are wrong, you know you are right.

鈥淲e knew that to authentically connect with our customer base, the best way was through content,鈥� she added. 鈥淲e spent three years doing that, and now we have 30 million monthly users reading our content and watching our videos.鈥�

With engagement established, Motherly will use the Series A funding to launch an e-commerce platform in the second quarter of 2020, Koziol said.

Melissa Hanna also knows the challenge of proving that her concept was not a niche service. In 2014, Hanna and her mother, Linda, formed , a Los Angeles-based startup providing maternal and infant health support services.

Mahmee partners with health systems and county health programs to connect women with care providers and organizations through their motherhood journey.

鈥淚t was very hard for babytech and maternity tech companies like ours to enter this market, get funding and establish ourselves,鈥� Hanna said.

However, that all changed in 2019. That鈥檚 when Mahmee raised $3 million in a seed round led by ArlanWasHere Investments.

Mahmee鈥檚 mission became especially evident during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Provider usage grew 250 percent in recent months as more people have needed access to health care, Hanna said. In fact, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services recently began using Mahmee with its 400 obstetricians and gynecologists to provide care, she said.

Hanna is now seeing 鈥渋ncredible demand鈥� from investors who are excited about the company, she said. As a result, the company is likely to raise money again before the end of 2020.

鈥淚t feels like babytech is having a moment,鈥� she said. 鈥淐ompanies are being taken seriously for the first time, and I know I am not the only founder to feel that.鈥�

Illustration:
Photos courtesy of Square Foods, Hatch and Mahmee.