US tech platform dubbed “the airbnb of preschools” attracts $25m in funding as it bids to eliminate “child care deserts”

Wonderschool, a US based childcare management platform that focuses on empowering aspiring early childhood education and care (ECEC) professionals to set up their own services, has raised $25 million in funding to help the business scale and meet demand. 

 

The platform provides a core suite of features for home based directors including support with operations, licensing, accounting, and marketing to attract enrollments, as well as expert and peer support to generate curriculum ideas and work through any challenges they may encounter.

 

Overall, their goal is to remove the red tape and real estate costs that make starting a stand alone service expensive to open and enrol in and help families find new ways to educate their children and find a work balance in a post pandemic world. 

 

“Child care is, perhaps, our most important public investment. And yet, we have historically relied on a fragmented, outdated system to make good on its promise,” said Chris Bennett,  founder and CEO of Wonderschool. 

 

“Wonderschool is harnessing the potential of technology to provide comprehensive support to home-based care providers, enabling them to create high-quality environments while also helping parents in need of childcare solutions with accessible marketplaces,” said Margaret Anadu, the Global Head of Sustainability and Impact for Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

 

Unlike the Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) system, the US does not provide subsidies directly to families at a federal level, nor does it have a regulatory framework in which children’s health and safety and educational outcomes are scaffolded and monitored. 

 

As a result there is more scope for home based ECEC professionals to create customised, flexible experiences for children in their own homes or in external environments such as forests or a park on a timetable or frequency that suits families in the community and lends itself to a home based service model. 

 

Wonderschool acquired Moxit, an all-in-one software to help child care centers manage billing, human resources, government compliance, and student records in September 2021 as a means to broaden its offer to their home based customers to include more than operations, licensing, accounting and marketing support.