The nationwide teacher shortage is plaguing not just elementary or high schools, but preschools and day care centers as well.
Emma Harris and Melissa Tran launched Early Day last year to try to help solve the problem. The San Francisco startup operates a job board for early childhood educators. Its service helps preschool teachers and assistants find jobs that meet their qualifications — and it fills a need not well met by other hiring sites, according to Harris.
"There's a massive daycare hiring problem in this country," Harris, who co-founded Early Day with Tran, told Business Insider. "Daycares are using Craigslist or Indeed to hire, and the turnover for teachers was 40% annually — and that was pre-COVID."
Harris and Tran first came up with the idea for EarlyDay — legally BetterCare Inc. — while Harris was searching for a daycare center for her first child, according to Business Insider. During her search, she quickly learned about early childhood education centers' hiring challenges, according to the report.
"The shortage of available childcare slots was keeping women out of the workforce," Harris told Business Insider.
EarlyDay has some early money to expand its service and help other day care centers and preschools find staff, raising $3.25 million in a seed round, Business Insider reported Friday.
Company representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment about its new funding.
Here's more on EarlyDay's new round and other seed funding news from this past week:
LMCA, Inc. (dba WIllow Servicing), Berkeley, $6 million: Thomvest Ventures led the round for this provider of mortgage payment software for financial services companies. Global Asset Capital, The Mortgage Collaborative, Webb Investment Network and Zigg Capital also invested.
Stepfunction Inc., Palo Alto, $5 million: Dallas Venture Capital led the round for this provider of revenue forecasting software for software-as-a-service companies. Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Inventus Capital Partners and Z5 Capital also invested.
BetterCare Inc. (dba EarlyDay), San Francisco, $3.25 million: Alpaca VC and Struck Capital led the round for this provider of a job board for preschool teachers. Precursor Ventures, Revolution's Rise of the Rest, Bright Horizons and FJ Labs also participated.
