Discovering HopSkipDrive was so game-changing for my family, I had to invest
This afternoon, like in many Los Angeles families, my kids will each leave their summer day-camps and head in opposite directions across our vast and car-filled metropolis to their additional extra-curricular activities. Occasionally, I have had the bandwidth to help ferry our kids to karate school in the Valley or to soccer practice in West LA. But this usually means dropping other responsibilities. For my wife and I, this schlep has become untenable. At the same time, it has become unfairly restrictive to our kids and their desired pursuits. For other families, many of which have far less flexible schedules than ours or maybe are making due as a single parent household, this daily challenge is even more unmanageable.
Things are about to change.
Along with many of our neighborhood and school friends, we discovered HopSkipDrive earlier this year. In just a few short months, they have become known as Southern California’s safest and most wide-reaching ride-sharing service built specifically for families. Given this experience, I am immensely proud that Upfront Ventures is leading the company’s $3.9M Seed round announced today. Along with our friends FirstMark Capital, Maveron, BBG Ventures, and Joanne Wilson, among other great angel investors, we are thrilled to support this great service that will substantially improve the lives of even more families.
It is not too often that I get to invest in a service that has the potential to transform my own life for the better, but HopSkipDrive excites me as much as a customer as it does an investor. The service uniquely ensures both safety for my child and convenience for my wife and myself. Founded by parents and designed for parents — HSD’s three founders, all mothers, were the service’s first customers, and still use it to transport their own kids — HopSkipDrive is the only ride sharing service that exclusively employs childcare professionals as drivers. This means that former teachers, nurses, and the like are taking your child to karate practice rather than converted taxi and limo drivers. The HSD “CareDriver” community is comprised almost entirely of women while, by comparison, only 14% of Uber’s drivers are women.
HopSkipDrive “CareDrivers” are essentially “caregivers on wheels,” who are often called upon to sign children in and out of school, and then wait at drop-off until the child has safely joined up with a coach, teammates, or fellow parents. These extra, yet essential expectations can only be entrusted to someone with caregiving experience and who has a higher commitment to such service than your typical ride-share or taxi driver. “CareDrivers” undergo extensive background checks (including fingerprinting) that go far beyond the industry standard. The app allows the parents of each child passenger to track rides in real-time, and in-car cameras will one day allow these parents to watch a live feed of their ride, as well. These and a slew of other features are all critical to ensuring peace of mind for parents and safety for their children.
Joanna McFarland, HopSkipDrive’s CEO and co-founder, is both the company’s formidable leader and its prototypical customer. As a working mother, Joanna often faced the challenge of balancing her kids’ logistical needs and the demands of her career. Like most parents, she found carpools to be unreliable, at best, and part-time nannies expensive and ill-suited to one-off transportation of her school-age children. Joanna, along with millions of parents across the country, needed a safer and more reliable option. HopSkipDrive is the solution to this problem, and the overwhelmingly positive early response from parents across Los Angeles could not be more exciting and validating of what Joanna, Carolyn, Janelle, and their team are building.
As I’ve spoken to customers of the service, I’ve been amazed by how dramatically (and quickly) HopSkipDrive has improved their lives. One mother told me that she almost had to quit her job after leaving the office early one too many days to pick up her daughter after school; another parent excitedly bragged that HSD meant her son could now join a soccer team, an activity previously impossible due to the mandatory three times per week afternoon practices across town. The immediate trust and continued engagement seen amongst these parents is unbelievable: 75% of parents who try the service purchase more than one ride; 40% purchase a multi-ride package after their child’s first experience; and the heaviest users use HopSkipDrive an average of four times per week.
Drivers too have boasted to me about their incredible experiences with the service — something you can rarely say in the ride-sharing market. Many of the company’s drivers, the vast majority of which are female, have told me they would not feel comfortable driving for another traditional ride-sharing service, fearing the unpredictable behavior of (often intoxicated) adult riders and despising the late-night schedule typically required to make a meaningful living on these services. These CareDrivers tell me time and again how strongly they prefer spending their days driving cute kids to school and their other activities. It’s not surprising, given what they’ve done previously in their careers. What better way to earn a significant supplemental income than by enjoying a half hour conversation with a curious 8 year-old excitedly sharing details about his or her day?
Furthermore, businesses and schools will be direct beneficiaries and users of this service as well. Soon the HopSkipDrive platform will allow businesses (e.g. tutoring services, karate school, sports activities, etc.) to offer safe transportation to their patrons as a supplement to their own services, and schools will be able to offer HopSkipDrive to those staying late for sports, theater and other activities.
Uber and Lyft have dramatically transformed our cities, but their impact is largely limited to adult riders. (Most people don’t even know that the terms of service for both Uber and Lyft require riders to be 18-years or older — not that I would trust these services with the safety of my daughter or son). HopSkipDrive, on the other-hand, only caters to the unserved market of 7–17 year-olds. And while other services selling “ride sharing for kids” have popped up in other regions, HopSkipDrive remains the first and only rideshare company that requires every CareDriver to be fingerprinted and registered on TrustLine — the gold standard background check for California nannies and babysitters. No other ridesharing service goes so far to ensure the safety of its passengers.
With over 100 drivers on the platform and thousands of paid rides completed in just the first few months, HopSkipDrive has quickly grown into the largest family-centric ride-sharing service in Southern California. This round of funding will enable Joanna and her team to continue expanding the reach of the HSD platform, while ensuring that we can maintain and improve the already rigorous safety standards established to date.
I love spending time with my kids at the end of the day. But it’s also important to me that they each are able to participate in after school activities, without restrictions based on my often unpredictable schedule. HopSkipDrive offers the convenience my family needs while delivering the safety I demand for my children. I’m so excited to watch HopSkipDrive change the daily lives of millions of other families like my own.
