
GoKid
Mobile app lets parents schedule and manage their childrens' transportation needs by easily setting up carpools.
Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
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- | investor | €0.0 | round |
investor investor investor | €0.0 | round | |
investor investor | €0.0 | round | |
investor investor investor investor | €0.0 | round | |
N/A | $100k | Grant | |
Total Funding | 000k |
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GoKid offers a carpool management platform aimed at helping schools, teams, and families coordinate transportation for children. The New York City-based company was founded in 2015 by Stefanie Lemcke and Sophia Koven. The inspiration for GoKid came from Lemcke's personal experiences after moving from New York City to a suburb. As a full-time working parent, she faced challenges in coordinating rides for her daughters' various school and after-school activities and saw the need for a technology-based solution to streamline the process. Lemcke, a serial entrepreneur with a background in law, media, and technology, including roles at Sky Germany, Disney, and Sony Music, decided to work on GoKid full-time after being accepted into the Techstars Mobility accelerator in 2016.
The company operates on a multi-faceted business model. For individual families, GoKid provides a mobile app on iOS and Android that allows parents to create and manage carpools within their trusted networks of friends and neighbors. While the basic app is free, a premium subscription is available for $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year, which unlocks advanced features like in-app chat, calendar integration, and notification settings. The core service emphasizes safety by ensuring parents only carpool with people they know, explicitly stating it does not hire drivers. The app includes features such as real-time GPS tracking of cars, live mapping, and automated alerts for pickups and drop-offs.
For institutional clients, GoKid offers "GoKid Connect," a solution for schools and school districts. This B2B product provides a secure web portal and administrative dashboard where schools can set up a private carpool network for their families. Parents within a participating school can then find other families who live nearby to organize shared rides, helping to reduce traffic congestion and address transportation gaps, particularly for the more than 50,000 U.S. schools without bus services. The pricing for GoKid Connect is structured as an annual license fee for schools, based on the number of students. The company has formed strategic partnerships with sports management platforms like TeamSnap and SportsEngine, as well as with automotive players like Bosch, InMotion (Jaguar Land Rover's venture arm), and Deutsche Bahn to integrate its services. Over its lifetime, GoKid has raised a total of $3.49 million in funding over six rounds from investors including Fontinalis Partners, Techstars, and VilCap Investments.
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