Singapore marketplace raises angel funding to help working parents find local services

Social Weaver co-founder and CEO Sumedha Khoche. Photo credit: Social Weaver.

When you’re a working parent, time is a resource as precious as it is scarce. Singapore startup Social Weaver is trying to scrounge some more of it for its users, and it just raised some pre-seed funding for its efforts.

The startup has secured an undisclosed amount from angel investors in banking and tech like CEO of Rewardz Sudhanshu Tewari and entrepreneur and investor Deepak Gurnani.

Social Weaver is an online marketplace that connects parents to services related to childcare, from child doctors to birthday party planners. The startup claims to have over 4,000 service providers on its website, who benefit from the access to Social Weaver’s user base. The startup works with its clients on a subscription basis, providing them tools to help with customer management and marketing.

The team will use the funding for product development, including building a mobile app and improving website features. It will also raise more awareness for the site.

The startup was founded by Sumedha Khoche and Kaivalya Gundu, a marketing and a tech professional respectively. Both working mothers, they faced a lot of the problems of having to find child-related services first-hand. So they decided to create a “TripAdvisor” for parents – a “Kid Advisor,” if you will.

It’s not the first business Khoche and Gundu started together – the long-time friends had a lending library for kids when they were little girls. Khoche went through roles in Procter & Gamble and Pepsico, while Gundu cut her teeth as business analyst for Wells Fargo and Bank of America before taking on a product role in Indian startup CallHealth.

There are several online marketplaces and communities aimed at parents in Singapore, including The Asian Parent, Flying Cape, and Kiasu Parents. Social Weaver claims its edge is building a large database of local information and resources. Khoche, who’s the CEO, says that parents usually want services that are local in their neighborhood and that’s what the startup aims to create for its user base.

The startup claims to have over 19,000 page views and 950 active users since its launch last week.