Pearachute

Pearachute is an online platform that helps parents discover and book the best children’s activities.

The company has already attracted top investors and advisors, including Sam Yagan, who's the founder of OKCupid and the Vice Chairman of Match.com.

PROBLEM
Parents want to spend meaningful time with their children, but activities are hard to find and even harder to book.

Pearachute believes that parents and children should spend more time playing and less time planning, but parents of children under age 5 face a dilemma:

Parents are eager for their children to discover new activities they love, so they sign them up for art, swimming, music, and soccer. But by the third visit, their 2-year-old is crying in the corner or refusing to get in the water, and they still have 9 sessions left that can’t be refunded.

The family activity industry is out of touch with today’s parents. Activity centers are poorly marketed and lock parents into expensive 10-12 week sessions for children too young to know what they like.

SOLUTION
This is why the company created Pearachute.

Pearachute is changing the way parents and children share, discover, learn and play.

Pearachute is a monthly membership club that makes it easy for parents and caregivers to discover, book, and drop into the best family activities in your city all at the touch of a button all for one affordable rate.

Activities range from arts & music, to dance, to learning & development, to storytime, to sports.

HOW IT WORK
Parents choose from three, six, or unlimited classes each month on PearachuteKids.com.

Immediately, they can begin searching from the thousands of family friendly activities all over the city. They can even filter by their child’s age or interest.

Parents simply select a class, click “drop-in,” and select who will attend.

BUSINESS PROGRESS AND HIGHLIGHTS
* 28% MoM user growth, 3.4x revenue growth since Aug, over 30,000 activities booked.
* $32B and growing market opportunity
* Top investors are already involved, including Techstars Ventures, and the founders of OKCupid, HotelTonight, and SitterCity.
* Simple business model: Company makes revenue through subscriptions of $39, $79, and $129 per month depending on which plan members select. It then pays its partners a discounted drop-in rate each time a child attends a class or activity. Its margins average 29% across all three product offerings.

Team Background

Desiree Vargas Wrigley - Founder & CEO

Prior to launching Pearachute, Desiree founded one of the world's first crowdfunding platforms, GiveForward.

She formerly worked at the Kauffman Foundation, a leading think tank focused on entrepreneurship.

She earned degree from Yale.

Sam Yagan - Chairman

Sam is best known as the co-founder of OkCupid, and in 2013 was named to Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World list. Sam also serves as the Vice-Chairman of Match.com.

Paul Lee - Board Member (Observer)

Paul is a general partner at Builders VC and the CEO and co-founder of Builders Studios.

As a former GP at LightBank, Paul led investments in several successful internet firms, such as Udemy, and CoffeeMeetsBagel.

Brittany Graunke - VP of Operations & Finance

Erica Alhorn - VP of Membership

Josephine Blough - Director of Partner Relations

Meghan McCambridge - Director of Partnerships

Brittany Perlmutter - Director of E-Marketing

Caitlin Gillis - Digital Marketing Manager

Co-Investors

TechStars

Prominent accelerator for tech companies. Investments include Uber, ClassPass and Twilio.

Paul Lee

Paul is a general partner at Builders VC and the CEO and co-founder of Builders Studios. As a former general partner at LightBank, Paul led investments in several successful internet firms, such as Udemy, CoffeeMeetsBagel, ElaCarte, Talentbin, Cleversense, and Contently. Paul also serves as an Adjunct Lecturer of Entrepreneurship at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.

Chicago Ventures

Chicago-based seed-stage venture capital firm.

Corazon Capital

Corazon Capital was founded in January 2014 by serial entrepreneur, Sam Yagan. Previously, Sam co-founded and grew SparkNotes (sold to Barnes & Noble), eDonkey (shut down along with Napster) and OkCupid, one of the world's most successful online dating companies (sold to Match.com). Yagan was appointed CEO of ShopRunner in July 2016. He also serves as the Vice-Chairman of Match Group, a position he assumed after serving as the company’s Chief Executive Officer and leading it through a period of explosive growth that culminated in its IPO.

Hyde Park Venture Partners

Mid-west based venture firm. Portfolio includes Avant, Bank and Flywheel.