Cleo, a San Francisco-based family support company, announced it raised $27.5 million in Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). This round of funding also included personal investments by former Yahoo! CEO and Lumi Labs co-founder Marissa Mayer, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, Levi’s CEO Chip Bergh, Box CEO Aaron Levie and former General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt.
How does Cleo work? The company partners with companies to set up benefits for working parents. For example, the Cleo app connects employees with a “Cleo Guide.” The Cleo Guide is a certified practitioner available that is available for advice on how to handle lactation, sleep training, and nutrition.
Founded by Shannon Spanhake (CEO) and Chitra Akileswaran (advisor), Cleo was originally launched under the name Lucy in 2016. They came up with the idea for the company in order to fill the gap between healthcare plans that businesses provide their employees and what the everyday working parents need in order to be successful in work and at home.
In conjunction with this funding round, Vanessa Larco of NEA and Immelt are joining Spanhake and Sarah Guo of Greylock Partners on the board.
Some of Cleo’s clients include Straus Family Creamery, Cooley LLP, Uber, eBay, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, and Slack. There are more than 475,000 families across 50 countries that utilize Cleo.
“While healthcare plays an important role in addressing medical issues during a pregnancy and birth, an OBGYN doesn’t help with lactation or sleep training, a pediatrician doesn’t help with finding the right preschool, and a general practitioner doesn’t give you advice on balancing a job and a baby,” said Cleo in a blog post. “When you download our app, you’re given step-by-step roadmaps and a dedicated Cleo Guide, a certified practitioner available to answer questions and talk through issues — but that Guide isn’t working alone to support you. Cleo partners with a curated, global network of leading experts who are certified in topics like lactation, sleep training, prenatal nutrition, and career coaching. This means Cleo is able to connect parents with the help they need, often times at a moments notice. We spend our time carefully bringing together top experts that meet our standard of quality care so that new parents don’t have to navigate this highly fragmented industry of wellness professionals on their own.”
Cleo also announced it added some new features this past week. This includes support for considering, conception, and kids. And there are new capabilities for global workforces meaning Cleo Guides can now speak a range of different languages ranging, including German, Polish, and Cantonese.
