By Rachel Carrell.I set up my business, Koru Kids, to solve a huge problem. We’re aiming to profoundly impact the wellbeing of a million families, by totally reinventing after school childcare.
It is a massive goal. To even think about achieving it, we needed some big investors on board.
Makes sense, right?
Except that I was also pregnant.
Raising money in London from professional investors while pregnant isn’t easy. You have to have lots of meetings all over London—ideally, four or five a day. Every day was a scramble up and down the stairs of the Tube, arriving at each meeting just in time but very out of breath. I took meetings right up until my due date, in a state of denial that a baby was soon arriving. In the evenings I did my whole normal day job, then tried to sleep before getting up and doing it all again the next day. For several months, before and after the birth, I was sleeping 4 hours a night and working until about 1am.
At 5:30 a.m. one Sunday I woke with advanced contractions. Alexander was born an hour later, and we both came home that day.
I resumed meetings the next morning at 9am—this time, by telephone. While my husband, Dave, held Alexander, I did my usual pitch with one small variation: “While running my previous company, I had a baby and noticed how difficult it was to find great childcare. Actually – well, I don’t want to freak you out, but I had another baby yesterday.”
My first in-person meeting was two days after the birth. I pumped breastmilk for Alexander, left him with Dave, spent an hour with the investor then zipped back home. For the next few weeks the three of us—Dave, Alexander and I—travelled to meetings together. I’d feed the baby on the way or in the reception, and do the meeting while Dave looked after Alexander. One time Dave took him off to the National Portrait Gallery nearby while I did my thing in the boardroom.
The process was arduous but in the end, it all paid off. The investment round exceeded expectations—raising £3.5m rather than £1.5m as we originally intended—and we were on our way to achieving our goal. Alexander and his big sister are doing really well too.
What kept me going was sheer bloody-mindedness, and commitment to our cause: Koru Kids needs to exist. The childcare system is inadequate and I’ve met hundreds of parents who are affected by it. People who can’t afford the care they know their children should have. Women who want to go back to work but can’t. Parents whose employers have agreed to part time work patterns but who can’t find the childcare to make it work. Families who are forced to leave London when they don’t want to. Parents who desperately want another child but can’t see how they’re going to manage.
The truth is, we all have challenges in our lives. My challenge was trying to do two difficult things at once. But other people have that too, with different challenges like bereavement, or mental health issues. Raising the money Koru Kids needed while also having a baby was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it’ll all be worth it when we’ve built the childcare system I know we need.
