HiMama Pivots to Enterprise Platform, Partners with National Child Care Provider
What do you do when your idea for a private social network where parents can share photos of their children with close friends in a more closed environment than Facebook doesn’t attract enough consumers?
Toronto startup HiMama decided to pivot and develop an enterprise platform that makes it easy for childcare providers and parents to record and share children’s activities, including everything from silly and fun moments to learning and developmental milestones.
Their new business model seems to be paying off. According to HiMama co-founder and CEO Ron Spreeuwenberg, the startup “just landed a deal with a national child care provider, BrightPath, which will help working parents in major cities from Vancouver to Toronto to connect with their kids while they’re at daycare through our apps.”
BrightPath currently has 50 early learning and child care centres across Canada. The partnership program will begin in Ontario this month and will then be rolled out in Alberta in December and British Columbia in early 2015.
Spreeuwenberg says 2.5 million moments “have been shared through HiMama since we launched last year.”
The HiMama app, which can be used on a desktop or tablet, provides a variety of benefits to parents across Canada which include:
- A sense of comfort knowing how their child is doing throughout the day, not just when they pick them up at the end of the day.
- Increased connection with their child through real-time photo and video updates.
- More information on what their child is learning and how they’re developing while under someone else’s care.
