Our investment in Moshi

With today’s announcement of Moshi’s $12m round of series B financing, we wanted to share our excitement for what Ian and the Moshi team are building: the world’s leading audio sleep and mindfulness app for kids, and why it signifies a classic and important Latitude investment.

Latitude was launched in 2018 with a conviction that by building on top of the platform of our seed-focused sister fund, LocalGlobe, we could create a different type of breakout fund, that would access world-class founders in situations where we have substantially differentiated access and insights.

Moshi was born out of Mind Candy, founded by Michael Acton Smith. Our partners Robin and Saul backed MindCandy in 2004 when it was a children’s games and entertainment company, which grew to entertain 100m kids for its leading title: Moshi Monsters.

Since then the company has been through a rebirth and a journey that truly epitomises resilience, focus and creativity.

Michael stepped down as CEO of MindCandy in 2015, to move to the US and build Calm. Moshi Monsters had struggled to transition from web to mobile and Ian Chambers, a games industry veteran, previously at Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, IGN and Game Digital Plc, joined Mind Candy in 2016 to lead the turnaround and next phase.

And the results building Moshi: Sleep and Mindfulness, focusing the company around children’s wellbeing and sleep, have been extraordinary.

At the heart of this company is a passion and understanding of children and families, with a fantastic and unique creative engine, supported by strong financial and digital leadership and subscription model.

From my time at Universal Music and BBC, I believe the quality of the content in the app and the creative process truly sets this company apart. All Moshi stories and songs are written from scratch by Steve Cleverley, based on the inspiration of the original Moshi characters.

They have also been working with legendary talent including Sir Patrick Stewart and Goldie Hawn to tell delightful stories, and have many more celebrities in the pipeline.

And Ian and the team have built a lean and solid team that perfectly supports and builds the business. In 2019 Moshi grew 7x and has now surpassed 100k annual subscribers with 85 million stories played, representing over 30 million hours of playtime.

What we’re seeing is that Moshi is changing the lives of families around the world, reducing bedtime stress for parents and their kids and enabling everyone to enjoy a peaceful night’s sleep: the app has had over 32k 5* reviews.

And as a parent myself, I attest. The role of the product is not to take away from bedtime reading, but rather to provide a tool to help children relax and fall asleep once the lights go out.

Sleep experts also validate the role of Moshi, helping children settle and give a greater sense of peace and safety when used as part of a regular bedtime routine especially with its use of audio stories that do not require kids to look at screens.

We see Moshi truly at the intersection of content and health/wellbeing, sectors we have deep exposure and experience in. Content businesses we have backed include Eastnine, Ferly, Platoon (exit to Apple), Tortoise, Sofar, The Narrative, and our growing health portfolio includes AccuRx, Awell, CoMind, Echo (exit to McKesson), Elephant, MyHeritage, Oxford Nanopore, Panakeia, Yulife, Zebra Medical Vision, as well as of course our company builder programme Zinc, which brings together individuals to solve the most important societal problems faced by the developed worlds.

And my background mirrors this interest: having spent many years at Last.fm, BBC and Universal Music, I have been excited and fortunate to lead the development of our health portfolio since joining the team just over 2 years ago.

Here we have a true uncapped opportunity: everybody sleeps, and there are over 1.3 billion children under 10 in the world. And especially in today’s world, the role of Moshi is even more important in supporting families to manage anxiety and sleep.

Some experts say sleep deprivation is now a “public health crisis”. The National Sleep Foundation for example says impaired learning, decreased school performance, emotional distress and health issues are the results of poor sleep behaviors and routines in children.

Latitude was established to be a known and trusted co-investor to participate alongside leading Series B funds. In Moshi, we’re just delighted to continue to partner with veteran investor Bruce Golden and Accel, global health and wellbeing expert Bill Roedy and new participation from Triplepoint. And we are thrilled to continue to work with Michael Acton Smith, who remains active on the board.

We set up Latitude as a separate fund and brand to LocalGlobe, as we wanted to highlight our ambition that through Latitude we are ‘doubling down’, bringing in new team members to support, while continuing to leverage the experience of the LocalGlobe team that will have been working with the founders since the inception days.

Moshi is the kind of investment we love to make through Latitude: highlighting access, insights, and the opportunity to continue to use our builder genes which all of us at LocalGlobe and Latitude love to deploy.

So snuggle down, cosy up and relax.

The story doesn’t end here:)