Bengaluru-based childcare startup Maasi has raised Rs 6 crore in a pre-seed round led by Better Capital, with participation from Antler India. The startup described it as one of the largest pre-seed rounds in India's childcare category.

Angel investors in the round include Rapido co-founder Rishikesh SR, Shadowfax co-founder Vaibhav Khandelwal, Xoxoday's Sumit Khandelwal, Siddhant Goyal of Crane VC and Sanjay Ramakrishnan of Multiply Ventures.

Maasi said it will use the funding to scale caregiver recruitment and training, build its technology platform and grow its team in Bengaluru.

Founded by Aashu Manchali, who is CEO, Gargi Pandey, who is COO, and Reshov Roy, who is CTO. Maasi grew out of Urban Parents Club, a community of more than 8,000 Bengaluru parents run by the founders, where the question asked most often was where to find a nanny who could be trusted.

“Childcare is the hardest problem in Indian homes, and the system around it has let everyone down,” Manchali said at the launch.

The funding comes a week after Maasi's public launch on 20 October. The startup said the launch drew a waitlist of more than 4,000 parents within five days.

It has so far served more than 1,200 parents through a network of over 500 caregivers, and said it is growing 20% week on week. Before the public launch, it ran an invite-only beta in Bengaluru.

“ Finding reliable childcare is still a gamble for millions of Indian parents. We're excited to back Aashu, Gargi and Reshov as they bring trust and accountability to it and build a new standard for childcare in India, ” said Vaibhav Domkundwar, founder of Better Capital.

Source link