Funding into mom & baby care companies plunges 80% in 2022, no new unicorns

Total funding raised by mom and baby care startups and companies was $418 million in 2022, a plunge of 80 per cent from $2.1 billion in 2021, a report has shown. Mom & Baby Care companies in the US have raised $5 billion till date, while those in China and India raised $2.8 billion and $1.4 billion, respectively, according to Tracxn, a leading global SaaS-based market intelligence platform.

The drop in funding is majorly due to the absence of late-stage investments.

Seed-stage funding in Q1 2023 fell 21 per cent as against Q1 2022 but jumped 444 per cent from Q4 2022.

Early-stage investments in the first quarter of 2023 rose 158 per cent when compared with Q4 2022, but dropped 64 per cent from Q1 2022, the report noted.

The sector attracted investments worth $21 million in Q1 2023, compared with $3.86 million in Q4 2022 and $26.5 million in Q1 2022.

"The space is seeing minimal or no activity in terms of unicorns and IPOs. In 2022 and 2023 till date, no new unicorn companies were created in this space," the report mentioned.

No IPOs have taken place in 2023 so far, while 2022 witnessed one company and 2021 witnessed two companies going public.

In terms of funding, Gamified learning platforms for Pre-K children is the top-funded business model in the last two years in this space, followed by Online Retailers and Breast Pumps.

500 Global, Techstars and New Enterprise Associates are the most active investors in this space till date.

IPV, Angel List and Techstars are the top seed-stage investors and Innoven Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital are the top early-stage investors, while Sequoia Capital, General Atlantic and IPGL are the top late-stage investors in the last two years.

The pandemic accelerated the growth of the Mom & Baby Care space, giving rise to innovation in this segment. The rise in the working class population with a higher disposable income, is also a supporting factor for growth in this space, said the Tracxn report.