The next chapter of supporting working families is here: Cleo’s Series C

Despite our national dialogue hitting a fever pitch regarding working mothers and employers’ increasing focus on their working family population’s devastating outcomes, we have a long way to go to make sure that we support the unique and ever more urgent needs of families around the world. The statistics paint the picture of a working family population at a crisis point:

• Last year, over two million women left the workforce with one in three citing childcare challenges.
• Recent reports show that 26 percent of working parents with children under 10 are considering leaving the workforce and another 30 percent are considering downshifting their careers.
• Black birthing people still are 3x more likely to die due to childbirth-related causes.
• A quarter of working parents are raising a child with specialized health needs and one in six children has a mental illness.
• Birthing people face a mental health crisis with up to 57 percent experiencing depression symptoms during the pandemic.

Since 2016, Cleo has been dedicated to creating a future where working families thrive—this work has never been more important, or material to our success as company leaders. That is why we’re so pleased to share that we’ve secured a Series C round of funding of $40M led by Transformation Capital with additional participation from Glynn Capital, PruVen Capital, and Gaingels and existing investors Greylock, NEA, and Felicis, that will allow us to accelerate our work to change the trajectory for these working families who are teetering on the edge.

Leading employers: Setting a new standard for working families

Before we share what’s next for Cleo, we want to thank our employer partners who are on this journey to build a better world for working parents with us.

Last year, in a time when working parents and the employers that support them were pushed to their limits, our customers took action to provide meaningful, essential support. Thanks to the commitment of customers like Salesforce, PepsiCo, Pinterest, and Schwan’s, our member population increased 8 times, vastly increasing our impact with our personalized, proactive guidance. Supporting parents is not exclusive to any one industry, location, type of workforce, or size of company which is why we’re proud to support diverse companies from accounting firms to tech companies all over the world.

A new era for working families

This new milestone is just the beginning of hard work ahead. As we continue to see the lasting impact of the pandemic on working parents, and working moms in particular, we are relentlessly improving and tailoring our product to meet their needs. Working families are infinitely unique and our vision is to build a platform so personalized and so adaptable that every family feels individually and wholly supported through growing their family, navigating their own health, and thriving in their career.

Here’s what you’ll see from us in the next year and beyond:

• Expanding support to more working parents. Last year, we expanded the offering of Cleo Kids from support for parents of children up to age 5 to cover parents with children up to age 12. In 2022, we’ll extend this coverage to include support for parents with children up to age 18 for specific programs like neurodiversity support.
• Growing Cleo Marketplace to address diverse family needs. Last year we launched Cleo Marketplace, an ecosystem of vetted partners that provide products and services to support working families, like childcare and educational enrichment programs, fertility support, and childcare. Cleo Marketplace currently includes 17 partners—including Winnie, Learning Care Group, Wonderschool, and Happiest Baby—and will soon be available to all Cleo customers. Over the next year, we will continue to add new partners to expand our care offering.
• Expanded clinical programs to drive improved health outcomes & ROI. We’re also expanding our clinical programs to make sure all Cleo members receive personalized support at the most critical times in their journey while we help employers control the increasing costs around fertility and maternity, including planning for a family, reduction of cesarean births, mental health screening and support, pediatric neurodiversity, and more. These programs help us identify risk factors, intervene early, and provide the ongoing support necessary for more positive outcomes.

Our mission remains as urgent and important as ever. As we look ahead to the new era of family support, we are called to work together with employers, health providers, policy makers, and parents to create a world where all working parents thrive.

When we invest in working families, we all win.