How Tech is Helping Millennial Parents
Millennials are parents to half of today's children. This generation of parents are more tech-savvy, educated, digitally connected, and busier than ever. Consequently, there is a rapid increase in demand for digital child-care products and services that eases the struggles of parenting and improve the welfare of today’s children.
However, while they are willing to spend more to provide the best for their children, many parents worry that they cannot afford to raise them. An average person working in Indonesia typically earns around IDR 12,100,000 per month, meanwhile here is a glimpse of the typical costs parents must incur to raise a child:
*Optional but mostly needed for both-working parents.
However, while they are willing to spend more to provide the best for their children, many parents worry that they cannot afford to raise them. An average person working in Indonesia typically earns around IDR 12,100,000 per month, meanwhile here is a glimpse of the typical costs parents must incur to raise a child:
When we talk about parent tech, we are not just talking about education and health-focused apps for kids. In fact, start-ups are revolutionizing parenthood from conception all through mental well-being for both parents and children. Parent-tech can be divided into 8 major categories:
1. Fertility
Businesses are offering solutions as early as the pre-pregnancy period when parents frequently experience stressful fertility issues. Start-ups are offering expecting couples various fertility-focused products, from cycle trackers, hormone at-home-test and tracker, to devices supporting concep- tion effectivity. These start-ups are giving inclusive access to track and increase couples’ fertility health.
For instance, Hannah Life, a Singa- pore-based start-up who just raised USD 5.15 million in pre-series A funding in early May, offering home-based technology that concen- trates sperm near the cervical opening to increase chances of fertilization.
2. Pregnancy Health
For expectant mothers, their fetus’ health comes above all as they want to make sure their baby comes out perfectly healthy. Traditionally, parents spent thousands of dollars and hours per week for doctor visits, a luxury not all parents can afford.
Start-ups like Babyscripts and Care Mother, give solutions for mothers for their pregnancy health with home-based products such as blood pressure monitoring, smartphone based CTG machine, and baby’s heartbeat monitor.
3. Pregnancy Education and Community
Parents often seek for health support experts and other parents in commu- nity for insights about their pregnancy. Especially new parents came into parenthood blindly with no idea on what to do with their pregnancy, which meals to consume and not to consume, what activities to do, et cetera. These insights usually came from word-of-mouth, from their peers, expectant mothers know that dairy products are nutritious but unpasteurised milk may contain dangerous bacteria for a fetus. But some parents may not have any peers. Start-ups give those parents an education platform and community to know and ask all things about preg- nancy.
4. Baby Health & Monitor
Post-partum, parents now have to worry about their baby’s health as new-borns are more vulnerable. One of the biggest parent-tech start-ups, Owlet, offer a baby monitoring ecosystem from cameras, socks that monitor babies’ sleep, and application providing all the data and insights, all to make sure that the baby is well even when the parents are away.
5. Baby & Kids Marketplace
As stated before, parents tend to spend so much for their children, including buying the best things for them. Sirclo Group’s Orami combines commerce, content, and community within one ecosystem to provide a one-stop-shop solution where parents can buy various products for their little ones, learn more about parenting, and share their knowledge and experiences with other parents.
Other players like Gigel.id on the other hand, are more focused on the sharing economy, providing a marketplace that allows parents to rent their kids and parenting-related items to other parents.
6. Baby Health & Monitor
The next important thing is to ensure children’s future through children-focused edtech firms. Ruangguru and Zenius bagged USD 205.2M and USD 20M respectively for providing online K-12 interactive bimbel platform.
7. Kids Activities
Other than formal education courses, parents always encourage their children to do their hobbies and take activities outside school such as painting, music, and language courses. Start-ups take the journey from offline to online from finding the right activity, registering, payment, and even (during the pandemic) where the activity took place. Like Kiddo from Indonesia and Flying Cape from Singapore, providing cheaper and more accessible kids activity choices than the traditional offline way in a faster journey.
8. Parents & Kids Well Being
In addition to physical health, all over well-being of parents and their children are also an important factor where people are becoming more aware of mental health. Peanut app from Europe offers a safe space to consult within community and to experts all things about womanhood from fertility, pregnancy, and mother- hood through to menopause. On the other hand, Little Otter offers a digital mental health solution for children through online therapy for the whole family.
What’s next?
Parent-tech in Indonesia is still in its nascent stage of development. The country’s parent-tech players typically focus on the retail and education segment. Many of them offer online channels for the sales and rental of kids-related retail products, while others focus on improving the country’s overall education level, whether it be in the form of gamified learning apps or after-school programs.
This industry has the power to significantly advance and cultivate the country’s future talents from their earliest days. As the technology in Indonesia’s parenting space is still limited, there are many opportunities for new startups to offer novel innovation within the industry and existing players to branch out to other catego- ries. With the right infrastructure and investments, parent tech might just be the next big thing.
OCBC NISP Ventura
May 2022