Family app Life360 announces $2.1M investment round from celebs and influencers

Family app Life360 announces $2.1M investment round from celebs and influencers

Household communication and monitoring app Life360 has introduced a brand new funding spherical that can see the corporate bringing on board quite a lot of “celeb” traders and influencers who, mixed, will type a brand new “Household Advisory Council” to assist form Life360’s future product route and advertising. The spherical, which is roughly $2.1 million in measurement, was led by Bryant Stibel, the agency co-founded by the late Kobe Bryant and enterprise companion Jeff Stibel. Others within the spherical included Vanessa Bryant, Joanna and Chip Gaines, Tony Hawk, Chris and Jada Paul, TikTok influencer Billy Perry, and Nicole and Michael Phelps.

 

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Life360 has traded on the Australian Securities Change (ASX) since itemizing two years in the past, so this spherical is extra about bringing on new stakeholders who can even assist appeal to extra consideration to Life360’s service. The corporate says it’s at present on observe to prime $110 million USD in income this yr for its app now utilized by over 28 million month-to-month customers throughout 195+ international locations. As of March 2021, 916,000 households are paying for Life360’s service.

The celeb traders together with Life360 will type the Household Advisory Council which can draw on the advisors’ family experiences to assist inform function developments and form the way forward for the product and advertising technique, Life360 says.

The corporate has been working to be extra aware of relations’ issues, because it desires to place its app as one thing all relations wish to use — not simply helicopter mother and father snooping on their youngsters. In reality, Life360 CEO Chris Hulls took to TikTok final yr to hearken to teenagers’ complaints about their lack of privateness, then used that to develop a extra privacy-respecting function known as “Bubbles.” The function exhibits a bubble round a common location, not a blue dot with an actual location. That is meant to present teenagers a way of the liberty they crave, whereas additionally serving to mother and father and children set up higher belief.

The brand new Household Advisory Council may assist Life360 streamline comparable types of enter from households, it seems.

“Investing and advising in firms is usually an grownup factor, not one thing you do together with your kids,” mentioned Hulls, in an announcement concerning the funding. “We’re creating a novel alternative to advise on a product facet by facet together with your youngsters. Having the assist of those icons speaks volumes to our long run imaginative and prescient to be the main supplier in household security providers. Life360 desires to create a model that feels significant and related for each mother and father and children. So it’s solely pure that we might ask our traders to take part in the identical spirit,” he added.

“One in every of my passions is making certain kids get the alternatives they deserve,” famous new investor, Vanessa Bryant (Kobe’s widow). “Life360 helps households really feel protected and guarded by making carpooling, pickup and drop-offs simpler for fogeys, whereas additionally offering places at their youngsters’ faculties, actions and sports activities practices. Having trendy instruments like driving info, pace and cellphone utilization makes me really feel much more relaxed, particularly with my teenage driver. I really like the truth that I can see my daughter’s location and pace in a automobile whether or not she’s driving or as a passenger,” her assertion mentioned.

Although greatest identified for its location providers, Life360 has been working to ascertain itself as greater than only a household tracker, given the competitors from apps like Discover My that now come constructed into cellular gadgets, in addition to providers supplied by cellular operators. Right this moment, Life360’s suite of household instruments consists of these for driving security, emergency help, identification safety, and extra.

Earlier this yr, Life360 additionally introduced the acquisition of wearable machine maker Jiobit to increase its monitoring skills to incorporate relations with out telephones, like younger kids and even pet.

That $37 million deal will shut in about 30 days, the corporate tells us.

The addition of the brand new traders follows Life360’s appointment of Randi Zuckerberg to its Board of Administrators earlier this yr, and final yr’s addition of recent C-Suite execs, CFO Russell Burke and CPO Jonathan Benassaya, to give attention to the corporate’s enterprise mode and product choices, respectively.