Bumpdate, a Philadelphia company that allows expecting families to share updates on their pregnancies, launched its app publicly in the Apple and Google Play stores this week.
The app had a soft launch in February and has since built a network of 4,000 users.
The app was grown out of founder Gabrielle Sylk's experience as a pregnant mother. She and a number of her friends were all expecting around the same time in 2020. Sylk found and used apps that would track pregnancy, but none that would let mothers seamlessly share updates with friends and family.
Sylk was 20 weeks pregnant when the idea to create an app dawned on her. A friend of hers had a loss at 20 weeks, and she had that point marked on her calendar when the friend was pregnant again — but there was nothing at her fingertips to remind her of the milestone.
"There's loads of apps out there that will tell you your baby's the size of a Gameboy or a bobby pin, but none that really help you keep track of how far along your friends are," said Sylk, who previously worked as a vice president of operations at BSD Education, which has its U.S. headquarters in Philadelphia. "I knew their due dates, I had those on my calendar, but I just wanted to remember, 'Is she 18 weeks, three days? When is that anatomy scan, the baby shower?' Just different things coming up."
Bumpdate was another business idea born out of the pandemic. Sylk said that not being able to share milestones in person was difficult after "dreaming of being pregnant for so long." Virtual baby showers, doctor's appointments in empty offices and not being able to see her friends' newborns in person made Sylk long for connection with people who were going through the same experience she was.
She has found that the demand persists in a post-pandemic world as well. It also continues after birth. The app allows users to share updates on newborns' milestones. Another aspect of the app that Sylk is looking to ramp up is a recommendation feature, where new mothers can share items and products that they have found useful when caring for their newborns.
Sylk said she doesn't anticipate putting ads on the app but does look at partnerships with other pregnancy platforms as a way to advance the company. Bumpdate has recently teamed up with brands like Moms on Call, Tinybeans, Yumble, Hatch, nēmah, the Dairy Fairy, Bibs and GöBe on the recommendation feature of the app.
"These aren't competing companies for us — they're companies that complement what it is we're doing," Sylk said. "We have the same audiences, but this would be added value. I could see long-term growth with partners like that, or we do it ourselves and I'm also fine with that. It really will dictate kind of what type of investors we get. I'm really hoping for strategic investors; we want somebody who understands the product market in the pregnancy, conceiving, baby parenthood space really well along with the technology aspect."
Bumpdate, which has a six-person team, has been privately funded to this point, but Sylk said she hopes to raise the company's first round of investor funding "as soon as possible."
However, Sylk said she wants to keep her team small right now and continue to outsource different parts of the product, like development and content production, to teams across the world. She described Bumpdate as "small and scrappy" and "agile."
Still, Sylk sees a lot of opportunity to be a major player in the pregnancy space.
"It really just started off as a be-a-better-friend project, and it's really just blossomed into something amazing," Sylk said. "And I think there's such huge potential for it. It's about securing the right team and moving it forward in the best way possible."
