toddl.co, one of the first SaaS solutions in Europe tailor-made for organisers of kids’ activities, announced that it has closed a €500k pre-seed round led by the impact venture capital fund Fondo Bolsa Social and supported by Banco Sabadell’s BStartup, business angels Marta Antunez (Wayra/ChicPlace) and Edurne de Oteiza (Wallapop), and also includes an ENISA loan of €195k.
Founded in 2021 by Stephanie Meagher and Lorin May, toddl.co is one of the largest and fastest-growing booking platform for kids’ activities in Spain, with a catalog of more than 2000 classes, camps and events and 17k monthly web visitors. With toddl.co’s all-in-one, cloud-based software tool, businesses can streamline their bookings, payments, client management and reach new families through the toddl.co marketplace.
“Social impact has always been at the core of our business,” said Stephanie Meagher, Co-Founder and CEO of toddl.co. “Through our platform, we aim to provide greater access to extracurricular activities for more children, to empower small business owners – the majority of whom are women – in the digitisation of their businesses, and to provide enriching childcare alternatives for working parents, who often struggle with family reconciliation. We’re thrilled to continue driving toward this mission with the support of our new partners.”
The new investment will allow toddl.co to accelerate product development and expand its sales and marketing team to achieve their goal of reaching 15.000 businesses and 50.000 families in 2024, thus consolidating their leading position in Spain and laying the groundwork for international expansion.
“At Fondo Bolsa Social we are very happy to become part of toddl.co. Stephanie and Lorin, two talented entrepreneurs with international experience, have launched a project with great growth potential. What we like most is that toddl.co’s impact mission benefits various groups: toddl.co helps reinforce the educational performance of our students, promotes work-life balance within families and supports female entrepreneurs,” commented José Moncada, Managing Director at Fondo Bolsa Social.
According to a study from the Esade Centre for Economic Policy titled ‘Shadow Education in Spain,’ nearly half of Spanish families are already investing hundreds of euros every year to broaden their children’s education, representing a €1.7 billion market opportunity in Spain alone. Parents are increasingly looking for more personalised learning experiences to complement traditional academic offerings, as well as to reconcile the mismatch between school and work hours.
Indeed, participation in extracurricular activities has been shown to improve students’ academic success, while also building confidence and creativity, strengthening interpersonal relationships and developing important ‘future skills’ that will help them succeed in secondary school and beyond. Activities might include: experimenting in science, drawing and painting, learning how to code, playing a musical instrument or participating in team sports; through these experiences, students develop social skills in a relaxed environment and in a format that supports different learning methods.
The announcement comes on the heels of the company’s acquisition of BuscaExtraEscolares, Spain’s largest directory of kids’ activity providers and academies. The merger of toddl.co’s industry-leading B2B technology with BuscaExtraEscolares’ nationwide network creates the most extensive and integrated platform in the market, and BuscaExtraEscolares’ founder Cristina Garcia, has joined the toddl.co leadership team.
