Excl: Kids-related services firm Mycity4kids.com raises angel funding from YourNest Angel Fund

Gurgaon-based startup Mycity4Kids has raised an undisclosed angel funding from YourNest Angel Fund, an early-stage venture capital firm.

Although the exact quantum of the investment could not be immediately ascertained, it is estimated to be around Rs 3-5 crore ($0.6-1 million), given the investment strategy of the sector-agnostic fund. Following this investment, Girish Shivani, director at YourNest Angel Fund, has joined the board of the startup.

It is the second investment by YourNest after it funded Noida-based Proof of Performance Data Services in March this year.

Mycity4Kids is an online guide for parents residing in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai and Bangalore, and provides information on playschools and schools, tuitions and day care, as well as sports classes, hobbies, fun events, summer camps and workshops. It also offers video reviews and ratings. The portal, therefore, provides a proprietary marketing and sales platform for local businesses to promote their services, manage leads & responses, and collect payment online or through the cash pick-up facility.

The money raised will be used to expand to more cities, strengthen technology adoption, enhance customer satisfaction and scale up the current team and cover more cities.

Speaking about the funding, Vishal Gupta, co-founder and managing director of Mycity4kids, said, "It is a vertical e-commerce portal exclusively focusing on local services for kids up to the age of 14. The funding will be primarily used to expand our geographical presence across top cities in India and abroad."

The startup will extend its services in Mumbai and Bangalore from July 15 and over the next three years, it will foray into the top 16 cities of the country.

Mycity4Kids has been started in 2010 by Vishal Gupta, Prashant Sinha and Asif Mohamed. An IIM Bangalore alumnus, Gupta previously worked with Asia Paints, Hindustan Lever and Aviva Life Insurance. Sinha is a passout from the Times School of Marketing and worked with the Times of India, Pepsico India Holdings and Aviva Life Insurance. An IIT Delhi alumnus, Mohamed had earlier worked for Citicorp Information Technology Industries, i-flex Solutions, Karna Softek India and Cranes Software.

In an earlier interview with Techcircle.in, Sunil K Goyal, CEO and founder of YourNest Angel Fund, said that a final close of its debut fund at $22 million is expected in the next 18 months and it is mostly raised from HNIs, institutions and LPs. The fund will invest in startups, straddled between angel funding and Series A round.

Speaking about Mycity4kids, Goyal said, "The single-minded focus on the under-leveraged demographic segment of kids and the quality of the founding team are the two reasons for us to invest. It is a pain-point that the team is trying to solve for parents. Moreover, its business model can be replicated in several large cities across different countries, which will allow us scalability."