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§ Private Profile · San Francisco, CA, USA
Winnie is a technology company.
Winnie has raised $16.0M across 3 funding rounds.
Key people at Winnie.
Winnie has raised $16.0M in total across 3 funding rounds.
Winnie operates as a marketplace for childcare, leveraging robust data systems to connect parents with early education providers. Its platform enables families to discover and evaluate high-quality local daycares and preschools, offering comprehensive details including descriptions, photos, tuition, licensing status, and availability. Concurrently, childcare providers utilize Winnie to manage enrollments, cultivate waitlists, and access resources designed to enhance their operational efficiency.
The company was founded in early 2016 by tech veterans Sara Mauskopf and Anne Halsall. Both working mothers of two, they conceived Winnie out of personal frustration with the protracted and opaque process of securing childcare for their own young children. Their shared experience highlighted a significant gap in the market for a transparent and accessible solution.
Winnie serves a dual customer base: parents seeking reliable childcare solutions and providers aiming to optimize their business and reach families. The company’s overarching vision is to facilitate connections between parents and high-quality childcare options across the United States, thereby streamlining a critical family need and supporting the childcare ecosystem.
Winnie has raised $16.0M across 3 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $9.0M Series A in October 2019.
# Winnie: A Child Care Marketplace Built on Data
Winnie is a two-sided marketplace that connects parents with quality child care providers while equipping providers with tools to manage their operations efficiently[1][5]. The platform addresses a critical pain point: parents struggle to find reliable, affordable child care, while providers face challenges filling capacity and managing their businesses. Winnie solves this by aggregating detailed information about daycares and preschools—including tuition, licensing status, photos, and availability—while providing providers with enrollment management, wait list building, and operational support resources[1][5].
The company operates at the intersection of family services and software-as-a-service, serving millions of parents across the United States[1]. With $15.25 million raised across three funding rounds, Winnie remains in Series A stage, positioning itself as a growth-stage startup in the expanding "Baby and Kids Tech" ecosystem[3][4].
Winnie was founded in early 2016 by Sara Mauskopf and Anne Halsall, both experienced tech veterans with backgrounds at companies including Google, YouTube, Twitter, and Postmates[4][5]. The founding story is deeply personal: both were working mothers frustrated by the exhausting, opaque process of finding quality child care for their own children[1][5]. Rather than accept this friction as inevitable, they applied their technical expertise to build a data-driven solution. This founder-problem fit—where the creators were solving their own acute pain—became the company's founding thesis and remains central to its mission[5].
Winnie operates within a larger trend of digitizing fragmented, offline service markets—particularly those serving families and addressing the "caretaking crisis" that employers and policymakers increasingly recognize as critical[5]. The child care sector has historically been underserved by technology, with most transactions happening through word-of-mouth, local networks, or inefficient search processes.
The timing is significant: as workforce participation among mothers remains high and child care costs continue rising, both parents and employers are seeking better solutions[5]. Winnie's emergence in 2016 coincided with growing venture capital interest in "femtech" and family-focused solutions, and the company has attracted backing from Salesforce Ventures, signaling validation from enterprise software investors[2]. The company competes in a growing category alongside newer entrants like TOOTRiS (founded 2019) and Mirza (founded 2020), indicating a maturing market[3].
Winnie has established itself as a foundational player in child care technology, but the company faces the classic marketplace challenge: achieving liquidity and scale on both sides simultaneously. With 58 employees and $1 million in annual revenue as of 2024, the company remains early-stage relative to its funding[1]. The path forward likely involves deepening provider adoption, expanding geographic coverage, and potentially integrating with employer benefits platforms—a trend evident in competitors' positioning[3].
The broader child care crisis—driven by provider shortages, affordability challenges, and policy gaps—suggests sustained tailwinds for platforms that can improve matching efficiency and operational transparency. Winnie's ability to evolve from a pure marketplace into a more comprehensive operating system for child care providers could determine whether it becomes a category leader or remains a useful but niche tool.
Winnie has raised $16.0M in total across 3 funding rounds.
Winnie's investors include Rethink Impact, Adverb Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Ascension Ventures, Astia, Bain Capital Ventures, BITKRAFT Ventures, BlueRun Ventures, Broadway Angels, Cleo Capital, Contour Venture Partners, Flucas Ventures.
Key people at Winnie.
