A product specialist in the betting industry has launched a parenting app.
Mother-of-two Margaret Zablocka applied her skills to create Onoco, which enables busy parents to support their child’s development. The app contains tools for planning, documenting infant care and tracking their development.
Zablocka was frustrated by the segmentation in the market for tools to track sleep, manage nutrition, detail activities and understand milestones.
The CEO has now raised £150,000 from Jenson Funding Partners as part of an ongoing pre-seed round into the company she founded in 2020.
“When I first became a mother, I discovered parent tech wasn’t adapted to my needs,” she said. “When I became a mum for the second time, I decided to apply my skills to develop a solution to help parents like me; those with a busy schedule who want to support their child’s development every day.
“As such, parents will also have access to the necessary information should they need to share it with a midwife or other health or childcare professionals.
“Every family is different – there are families made of just one mum and those made of two mums or two dads, while other families are the combination of two divorced families or have grandparents heavily present in a child’s upbringing.
“The saying goes ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ – so we want Onoco to be that village. We are going to uniquely apply the power of AI to enhance our prediction tools and improve family communication and baby’s development.”
Zablocka leveraged her econometrics education and subsequent product delivery career, which saw her lead product management at financial firms and the likes of Paddy Power and Betfair, to launch Onoco.
Upon completion, the pre-seed round will enhance the existing product with an AI algorithm as part of Onoco Premium. The AI will be capable of analysing a baby’s habits to predict when they’re likely to be tired, as well as generating a customised schedule with supportive tips.
New hires will also be made to grow the tech and marketing teams within the business which, in addition to Zablocka, is led by CTO Oskar Dylewski, an experienced technical lead at Palantir Technologies, and CMO Aida Bejgane, Starling Bank’s former head of paid acquisition.
Jeffrey Faustin, CIO at Jenson Funding Partners, added: “We’re thrilled to be leading the investment in Onoco. Margaret is working towards an incredibly important shift into how society thinks about childcare and the roles and responsibilities of caregivers within each family.
“As evidenced, interest in the parent tech sector is on the rise and we’re excited to be a part of it with such a forward-thinking business.”