WeeCare Raises $4.2M To Help Parents Balance Career And Family

Even if millennials were to start having kids, it’s unlikely they could afford to take care of them.

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To alleviate this problem, WeeCare has raised $4.2 million to help those who made the leap to parenthood find affordable early child care providers. It does this by turning child care into a potentially lucrative gig economy opportunity for those with empty homes and endless patience.

WeeCare is taking upon itself the task of training, licensing, and certifying child care providers, a workforce which is lacking in many areas of the United States. Once licensed, the startup keeps providers on its platform by offering services such as finance, billing, and marketing management.

It is presumably this increase in child care providers, and likely a good dose of VC subsidy, that allows WeeCare to offer rates that are “30 to 40 percent more affordable” than standard daycare arrangements, according to the company’s press release. For parents who often pay a college tuition and then some to maintain a career and kids, it’s a savings that will likely be hard to ignore.

Adam Nelson, a Social Capital partner whose firm led WeeCare’s latest infusion of cash, said in a press statement that the startup will “free up primary caregivers to pursue their career with peace of mind.”

But Social Capital isn’t the only investor with its sights set on the lucrative childcare market. Baby-focused startups are also drawing seed-stage funding, according to a Crunchbase News report. And in the past year, over a quarter billion in private capital has been put into child care startups.