NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vivvi, an employer-sponsored child care company that is addressing today’s child care crisis by catalyzing a family-inclusive future of work, today announced $15 million in Series B funding to make exceptional care and learning more accessible and affordable for working families. The funding will help meet accelerating demand from employers, and expand its platform nationally to include new campuses, In-Home Care, Virtual Tutoring, a National Back-Up Child Care Network and the newly launched Care Cash.
This latest offering, Care Cash, allows employers to equitably and flexibly support the cost of child care by providing reimbursements for care provided by an employee’s “trusted village” of family, friends or neighbors. This benefit empowers employers to support the millions of families most at risk of leaving the workforce due to child care gaps by compensating the otherwise unpaid caregivers they already rely on, and allowing families to flexibly choose the care that best fits their needs.
“Despite being the largest share of wallet for families in the U.S., the child care industry has seen little innovation over the last 50 years -- and the crisis has only deepened throughout the pandemic,” says Brian Hirsch, Managing Partner of Tribeca Venture Partners. “Vivvi's vertically integrated solution tackles the critical work of actually building new capacity, while rewriting the playbook for how families experience this time of their lives and how employers can support their most important asset: their people.”
To support increasing demand, Vivvi expects to open 30 new schools over the next three years, including several dedicated on-site programs for employer partners and its newest campus at 620 W 42nd Street at Silver Towers in partnership with Silverstein Properties, also announced today. This comes on the heels of the successful launch of Vivvi’s campus at Hudson Yards, and the growth of its nationwide In-Home program. With seamless In-Home and On-Site options, Vivvi now offers employers and families a first-of-its-kind hybrid child care model that reflects how parents live and work today.
Vivvi has also announced a range of new clients across the healthcare, legal and digital media industries, expanding its services to thousands of new working parents. Recent additions to Vivvi’s roster include theSkimm, Tend Dental, Avenues, Cerberus, Goodwin Procter and Barasch & McGarry, to equitably serve employees across locations, needs and income levels.
“When parents have high-quality, flexible child care, they’re more productive at work, they feel less overwhelmed, and they feel more appreciated,” said Ellen Hitt, Head of People at Tend. “Vivvi is key to our growth as a company; we can’t grow unless our employees feel supported and show up as their best selves to take care of our members and each other.”
Vivvi’s growth comes at a time when child care is needed more than ever, with an already supply-constrained market that has left 75% of Americans living in a child care desert. More than 2 million working mothers were pushed out of the workforce during the first year of the pandemic alone, and female participation in the workforce is at the lowest level since the 1980s.
This urgent need for high-quality and reliable child care for working families is increasingly driving demand for employer-sponsored care benefits, which are more important to working families than ever before. In Vivvi’s 2021 State of Working Parents Survey, 82% of respondents said spending more time at home with their children over the past year has made employer-provided child care benefits even more important to them.
“As employers today grapple with labor shortages amidst the Great Resignation, flexibility and a deliberate focus on family inclusion benefits represent critical components of any successful Future of Work playbook,” said Charles Bonello, CEO of Vivvi. “Working parents need reliable, high-quality and flexible child care solutions. Forward-thinking employers who rely on attracting and retaining the best talent are increasingly stepping up to recognize and honor those needs.”
To support this expansion, the Vivvi team has announced key leadership roles including:
- Lauren Hobbs, Chief Marketing Officer
- Anirudh Maheshwari, Vice President of Finance
- Lauren Gill, Senior Vice President of People
- Athena Papanicolaou, Vice President of Client Success
- Lauren Perrotta, Vice President of Sales
The Series B funding was led by Tribeca Venture Partners with participation from Rethink Education, Hither Creek Ventures, CityRock Ventures, Able Partners, Conversion Venture Capital (CVC2), and Dan Sommer, former CEO/Founder of Trilogy Education.
About Vivvi
Vivvi provides exceptional child care and early education. With programs across the country, including on-campus, in-home, in-office, care cash and virtual tutoring, Vivvi partners with employers of all sizes to make child care more accessible and affordable. By helping companies cater to working parents and providing a comprehensive vision for today’s families, Vivvi offers the most powerful tool for recruiting, retention and productivity. For more information, go to www.vivvi.com.
