Atlanta-based parental monitoring and screen-time management company Bark has raised a $30 million Series C round.
The funds will be used by the company for hiring, product development and enable global partnerships. The investment will also go towards efforts to accelerate its global expansion. The company declined to provide further details.
“We’re receiving inbound from families all across the globe and all different types of languages begging us to come to their country and for various reasons we couldn't,” said Titania Jordan, chief marketing officer at Bark. “We're now digging into being able to do that.”
About the raise: The financing round was led by Kayne Partners, a growth private equity group of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors. The investment brings the startup’s total funding to $67 million. Bark's other investors includes the Atlanta Seed Company, Signal Peak Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures and Fuel Capital. This isn't the Los Angeles-headquartered firm's first investment into a local company. In 2019, Kayne Partners also invested $15 million in Atlanta marketing and ad company Ideas United, creating 30 jobs. Kayne Partners Managing Partner Leon Chen will be joining Bark's board of directors. Before joining Kayne Anderson in 2012, Chen was the director of business development at Los Angeles-based film financing and production company Relativity Media, according to the firm’s website.
Why it matters: Bark believes that it can provide a sufficient solution to an increasing problem in the age of social media and digitization. According to the company’s 2021 annual report, 90.73% of teens encountered nudity or sexual content, 42.05% of teens used language about or were exposed to anxiety and 93.31% of teens engaged in conversations surrounding drugs and alcohol. Exposure to bullying and harassment could lead to more than self-harm. The gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, was reportedly isolated and teased growing up and allegedly sent threatening messages online that weren't reported to authorities. The company believes its service balances the need for security and privacy in children’s online activity.
“Our premise as a company is to help raise responsible digital natives and you can't do that if you're overbearing,” said Jordan. “You can't do that if your child feels like they have no room to breathe or grow or make mistakes, on the flip side, you can't just stick your head in the sand and could be completely ignorant to what's happening with kids today.”
Recent growth: In the last two years, Bark has grown from 60 to 135 employees, according to the company. In the past few months, Bark expanded its services into Guam, Australia and South Africa. Last year, the company formed partnerships with Cricket Wireless and Mississippi-based telecommunications company C Spire to offer services and discounts to customers of those companies. That same year, Bark sent more than 23 million alerts to parents notifying them of potential cyberbullying. That number grew from 7.3 million in 2019. To date, Bark says it has notified law enforcement about 1,000 predators. The company declined to state how much it is looking to grow, but said “the regular expectations that are in place for a startup to double or triple or even quadruple year over year are certainly in place for ours.”
About the company: Bark is a technology platform that uses artificial intelligence to alert parents of threats such as cyberbullying, suicidal ideation or online predation. Its services cover over 30 social media platforms in addition to text, email, YouTube, etc. The company was founded in 2015 by Brian Bason. Prior to launching Bark, Bason had been the chief technology officer of The Niche Project, Inc., a social media marketing company that was acquired by Twitter. Being a parent of two, Bason was inspired to use his experience in the social media space to launch a company that protected children’s safety. Atlanta Business Chronicle in 2019 ranked Bark as the metro area's 16th fastest-growing private company. In 2020, the company was the 2020 Atlanta Inno Blazer winner in the AI and Security category of the Fire Awards. The company is based in the Atlanta Tech Village, an incubator known for growing successful software companies.
