Flipkart Invests $2 Mn In Parenting Network Tinystep

Bengaluru-based parenting-focussed social network Tinystep has raised $2 Mn funding from ecommerce giant, Flipkart.

Tinystep was founded in September 2015 by Suhail Abidi. It provides a free and comprehensive platform to connect parents with doctors, child service providers, and other parents globally.

The app has features like posts, multiple chat options, and a public forum and serves a few fundamental needs of parents, especially moms – the need to connect, ask, and share with other parents going through the same phase in life.

Ram Papatla – VP Product at Flipkart and Tinystep Board Member said: “Tinystep has a great team which has built strong, community-focussed features, including chatting with trusted parents on the platform, one-stop location to store and share all baby pictures etc, which are driving user adoption. We believe they are on their way to build a truly differentiated content-rich social network for parents. Baby care is an important category for Flipkart and the investment in Tinystep will enable Flipkart to leverage Tinystep’s strong user community to build a network of influencers”.

The startup will use the newly raised funding to advance the product, better the user experience, and expand the services.

Talking about Tinystep’s journey founder, Suhail Abidi said: “It has been a nail-biting year. We’ve grown as a product, as a team and have learnt to now focus our energies on the new revenue model. Flipkart has been a great partner and supportive of us in all our endeavours, we’re excited about what’s ahead and we can’t wait for parents all over the world to fall in love with everything we have planned”.

Prior to this in January 2016, Flipkart had invested an undisclosed amount in Tinystep’s Seed round of funding. Later in March 2016, Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Matt Glickman invested an undisclosed amount in Tinystep. Other players in the segment include BabyBerry, Ratan Tata-backed Firstcry, Mahindra Group’s BabyOye, HopScotch, etc.