Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigns, UPS shares fall more than 13%, and Forerunner Ventures backs a new platform for parents' middle-of-the-night questions. Have a wonderful Wednesday!
- Ask an expert. As an investor at Forerunner Ventures, Kirsten Green's firm focused on backing consumer businesses, Eurie Kim had long been interested in the parenting space. But she found it difficult to identify a business that could keep up with the changing needs of parents. "As soon as you're done with one problem, you're onto the next one," Kim says. "Lifetime value—how long a customer is going to stay with you—is very challenged."
Kim recently changed her mind on the viability of a parenting-focused business when she came across Joy, a new tech platform for parents. Founded by Emily Greenberg, Charlie Carpenter, and CEO Alan Charming Chan, the startup aims to serve as a kind of 24/7 lifeline for parents. Forerunner has led a $10 million seed round in Joy, Fortune is the first to report. Other investors include Magnify Ventures, Wesley Capital, and Obvious Ventures.
Caregivers can text experts for live advice on issues like feeding and sleep, they can read and watch personalized content about parenting topics, and shop for products via an e-commerce platform. Access to the platform costs $8 a month. Kim compares it to another Forerunner investment in the pet food brand the Farmer's Dog. "When you build trust with your customer...in an area that really matters, you can sell them whatever over time," she says.
"The ability to put all these disparate services together into a broader platform was exactly what I felt I needed as a parent and, from an investor standpoint, exactly what we needed to break the challenge we hit around how you could keep your customer for longer than two weeks—because as soon as your lactation problem is over, now I'm onto sleep, now I'm onto rashes," Kim says.
Joy's parenting support platform is similar to Summer Health, a text-based platform for parents to talk to pediatricians, but without the medical expertise. Joy aims to serve as a similar resource for all non-medical questions, from the contents of a diaper to a parent feeling like they're not bonding with their baby. "Sometimes it's not that you need a doctor, it's just that you need to talk to somebody," Kim says. The platform relies on AI for some communication with users and to find caregivers more personalized answers to their questions than a Google search would.
Greenberg, one of Joy's cofounders, says Joy is filling a role now held by an army of paid consultants for issues like lactation and sleep; Google; social media; and texting friends and family. She recalls her own experience as a new parent: "It was hard, it was lonely and isolating," she remembers. "I felt like I was coming up short and looking for something to stitch it all together."
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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