Parentlane gets angel funding from former Flipkart exec, others

Social networking mobile app for baby-care and parenting ParentLane, which is run by Bangalore-based Discovery Info Labs Pvt. Ltd, has raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from a clutch of investors led by Sujeet Kumar, former president (operations), Flipkart, it said in a statement.

The other investors who participated in the round include Aprameya Radhakrishna (founder of TaxiForSure), Sumit Jain (co-founder and CEO of CommonFloor.com), Subramanya Venkat (former managing partner at Bessemer Venture Partners and co-founder of Fisdom.com), Venk Krishnan (managing Partner at NuVentures), Ravi Machani (founder of IndiVillage LLP), Hitesh Gupta (founder of Vcbytes) and Rohit Choudhary (senior engineering manager at Hortonworks).

The company will primarily use the funding for product development and mobile technology to enhance user experience and engagement rate on the platform.

"Our lifecycle-based personalisation approach on early child development by leveraging technology is powerful especially with over 70% of new-age parents living in nuclear families with limited support," said Vijay Anand, co-founder and CEO of Parentlane.

Founded in 2015 by Vijay Anand and Neeraj Kumar Gupta, Parentlane is a mobile social networking platform that offers personalised guidance and advice on the development of children from the time they are born till 8 years. The firm leverages data science and machine learning to map child development and deliver personalised recommendation to parents. The app is currently available only on Android.

Parentlane was incubated at Accel Startup Pad, the startup incubating platform of Accel Partners.

"The app will deliver personalised and trusted resources, tips and recommendations to parents during all stages of their child's development," Anand said.

An IIM Bangalore alumnus, Anand earlier served as senior vice president at Tiger Global. He also worked with Accel Partners-backed travel content platform HolidayIQ.com, US-based enterprise software firm Trilogy, HDFC, Coca-Cola India and Colgate Palmolive. An IIT Delhi alumnus, Gupta earlier worked as tech lead with Coupons.com. Previously, he also served at Samsung.

A few ventures in the baby-care and parenting space have raised funding recently. In March this year, AddoDoc Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs mobile app Babygogo that connects parents with child healthcare experts, had raised Rs 2 crore ($300,000) in a seed funding round led by angel investor Rajul Garg. 

In the same month, Bangalore-based WeHive Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs parenting social network TinyStep, had raised an undisclosed amount from Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur and investor Matt Glickman. 

In February this year, Bangalore-based CereBrahm Innovations Pvt. Ltd, which operates parenting app BabyBerry, had secured $1 million (Rs 6.8 crore) in angel funding from industrialist Nitin Bagmane and a bunch of undisclosed investors. 

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