BabyQuip

10 million U.S. families have children under the age of 4.

90% of these families travel with their kids, creating a $150 billion family travel market.

BabyQuip is targeting this market. It’s a baby gear rental service that provides clean, safe, insured baby gear rentals to traveling families.

Instead of lugging heavy equipment like strollers and cribs, families can simply rent items from more than 550 “Quality Providers.” Families can rent cribs, strollers, toys, high chairs, and car seats.

BabyQuip is a fast-growing company. It’s already raised $2.75 million from notable investors including Startup Capital Ventures, Quake Capital Partners, and Startx. In addition, it’s projected to bring in more than $3 million in gross revenue in 2019, an 85% increase from 2018.

Led by the co-founder of Match.com, an online dating website that’s part of Match Group (Nasdaq: MTCH), a company with a market cap of nearly $20 billion, BabyQuip is raising funds to build its brand, and expand its services internationally.

(Please note: This particular startup is raising funds from accredited investors only. An accredited investor is someone with a net worth of at least $1 million, or annual income of at least $200,000, or $300,000 with their spouse.)

Because it’s targeting families with young children, BabyQuip is appealing primarily to “millennials.” This demographic overwhelmingly prefers to “rent” products instead of buying them. In fact, 72% of them use services that are part of the “sharing economy.”

The problem is that traveling with babies and gear is difficult, exhausting, inconvenient, and expensive. BabyQuip solves this problem by enabling travelers to rent items similar to requesting items at a hotel.

All products come from BabyQuip’s quality providers. All providers are vetted by the company, and must submit background documents before becoming eligible to rent their items. Products are checked for safety, cleanliness, and any product recalls.

Based on reviews from customers, 100% said products they rented were safe, and 66% reported their cleanliness level as “spotless.” 81% of customers said the provider created an “excellent experience.”

By renting out their products, providers can earn an average of $500 per month. According to data from a recent CNBC report, this is higher than average monthly take-home pay from other economy services like Uber, Doordash, and Etsy.

With respect to BabyQuip’s customers, most place orders when traveling to vacation rentals (32% of orders), private residences (46% of orders), or hotels (22% of orders).

The average customer order value is $160, and could include $40 to rent a crib for five days, $20 for a booster chair, and $60 for two toy packages.

Based on this order, BabyQuip earns $40, or roughly 25%. The company’s cost to acquire each customer is $21, and each customer’s lifetime value is three times this amount. 25% of customers place repeat orders, and BabyQuip notes that this statistic is on the rise.

BabyQuip’s service is available in more than 400 locations in 49 states and Canada. The company has partnerships with Booking.com, HomeAway, Wyndham Hotels, and Urbansitter.

Since launching in 2016, BabyQuip has filled 30,000 orders, and generated $4.7 million in revenue.

Moving forward, the company plans to offer a monthly subscription for families who need long-term rentals of products. This subscription would cost $199 per month.

Team Background

Nicole Kitzman - Director of Recruiting

Nicole has extensive experience in the baby product rental market, having started her own similar business prior to joining BabyQuip.

She started Capital Baby Rentals, a baby product rental service for families in the Washington D.C. metro area.

Before that, she spent 10 years with Google as a senior account manager, where she eventually managed a team responsible for generating $100 million of annual revenue.

She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing and International Business from Penn State University.

Fran Maier - Founder & CEO

Fran is a serial entrepreneur with nearly 25 years of experience running internet-based businesses.

Most notably, she was a co-founder of Match.com, an online dating website that’s part of Match Group (Nasdaq: MTCH), a company with a market cap of nearly $20 billion.

In addition, she founded TRUSTe (now TrustArc), a computer software company.

Fran spent four years as an assistant brand manager for Clorox Company (NYSE: CLX).

She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Public Policy and an MBA from Stanford.

Joe Maier - Chief Technology Officer

Prior to joining BabyQuip, Joe was a technology consultant for Accenture (NYSE: ACN), a professional services company. While there, he helped design, build, and test web applications for the U.S. Department of Education.

He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from American University and studied at the London School of Economics.

Co-Investors

Quake Capital Partners

A venture capital group and startup accelerator investing in seed-stage companies.

Startup Capital Ventures

A VC fund investing in early-stage startups. Successful exits include WhiteHat Security and PlayFab.

StartX

A non-profit startup accelerator associated with Stanford University.