Coming off raising an $8 million Series A funding round in December, Chicago startup The Mom Project has inked a new partnership with a San Francisco startup to expand its services.
The Mom Project, which has built an online platform to connect employers to viable female candidates, announced Monday that it’s working with UrbanSitter, an online and mobile service that connects parents to babysitters. Through the partnership, The Mom Project’s clients, who are mainly mothers, will have access to free childcare while they are interviewing for jobs.
Every member of The Mom Project now receives a free month of UrbanSitter’s services, and whenever they have an employer interview through The Mom Project’s marketplace, they receive a $75 UrbanSitter credit.
UrbanSitter, founded in 2010, taps into a parent's personal network to connect them with sitters of friends, co-workers and other social circles to find a sitter they feel they can trust. The company, which has raised more than $40 million in venture capital funding, has about 1 million users across 50 cities.
"At UrbanSitter we strive to meet the diverse demands of childcare," said Lynn Perkins, the co-founder and CEO of UrbanSitter, in a statement. "As a company created by women for women, we are proud to work with The Mom Project to provide a crucial support network for thousands of mothers across the country who are pursuing their career goals in 2019."
The Mom Project, founded in 2016 by Allison Robinson, is a job marketplace platform that helps a variety of job-seekers find work. The startup takes a special interest in matching women who have left the job market to start a family or for other personal reasons get back into it. Robinson came up with the idea for the startup after taking her own parental leave from her post at Procter & Gamble to raise her son.
Now, The Mom Project has clients and users in nearly every major U.S. city, including Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco and New York.
The new partnership comes after the startup raised $8 million in December from Grotech Ventures, Initialized Capital, Aspect Ventures and others. The round brought The Mom Project’s total funding to $11 million.
Robinson said the new deal with UrbanSitter is just the first of many initiatives the company plans to launch as it expands and grows its business.
"It was evident that job-seeking moms were in need of an innovative, trustworthy and often 'on short notice' childcare solution to focus fully on bringing their best selves to the interview process," she said in a statement. "This partnership underscores our commitment at The Mom Project to build a comprehensive support system for moms as they set, pursue and achieve their career goals."
