A community-based platform for parents has secured £3.5m funding led by VC firm Downing Ventures alongside NVM.
Channel Mum offers advice on a range of family topics, in the hope to build friendships and help women through the obstacles of parenthood.
Established in 2015, Channel Mum was founded by Siobhan Freegard OBE, who previously founded and sold Netmums.com.
Freeguard focused more on video for Channel Mum than she did at Netmums, to cater for the changing way we consume content.
She commented on the investment: “As an all-female led team in the fast-developing digital sector, we needed an investment partner who could visualise the bigger picture and realise that to engage the Millennial and Gen Z market, you need to do good while doing good business.
“Downing fulfilled all our criteria and more and are already adding value to the company. I expect the partnership to be fruitful for both firms,” she added.
London-based Downing Ventures invests in seed to series A companies across various tech sectors. Richard Lewis, Investment Director at the firm, concluded: “We believe Channel Mum is well-placed to scale its platform over the next three years and take its award-winning content to mums across the UK.
“A huge part of Channel Mum’s success so far is thanks to its team’s unparalleled understanding of the type of content that engages the mums of today, something which gives us great confidence about the long-term future of the business.”
The website contains information from experts, alongside opinions from family vloggers and influencers.
Parents can share information in forums, on everything from maternal mental health, pregnancy symptoms, breastfeeding and potty training. Organised under broad areas of “trying for baby”, “pregnancy”, “baby”, “toddler”, “child” and “support”, Channel Mum wants to ensure that no mum feels alone, whatever they are experiencing.
The firm claims that over five million millennial mums use its service. It has ran campaigns with brands such as Iceland, Cadburys, Disney and McDonalds.
This latest funding support will help the business broaden its audience reach further and scale the platform.