Mother Ventures looks at moms as the ‘economic engine’

As families across the US prepare to celebrate Mother’s Day this Sunday, Alison Stern looks beyond the one day of appreciation.

Stern just closed $10 million in commitments for her early-stage debut, Mother Ventureswhich focuses exclusively on the mother as a consumer.

“In the US, mothers are responsible for 85% of household purchases and have $2.4 trillion in power,” Stern (pictured below) told TechCrunch. “The numbers say moms are the buyers, and they’re really a very unique economic engine.”

Stern, a mother of two, leverages that spending clout by backing startups that reflect the needs of modern mothers. Since Mother Ventures launched two years ago, it has already committed $4 million to 13 startups. Its portfolio includes Coral Care, which enables Immediate booking of pediatric specialists for children with developmental delays, and Tin Can, a popular Wi-Fi enabled “landline phone” designed in retro style children’s phone.

Prior to starting her own fund, she co-founded Tubular Labs, a social video analytics startup that she helped grow to $25 million in annual recurring revenue prior to its 2023 acquisition by private equity, and served as an operating partner at The Chernin Group (TCG), a consumer-focused equity development firm.

Part of TCG’s investment thesis included backing companies that served “neglected unique audiences with spending power,” such as Barstool Sports, which initially targeted Boston sports fans, he said.

When Stern set out to launch her own fund, she recognized mothers as a similarly underserved market with the potential to deliver superior returns. “I felt like motherhood is the ultimate position that isn’t really a position,” she said,

Stern convinced Tony James, the former president and COO of Blackstone and current chairman of the board of Costco, to back Mother Ventures as an LP presenter. Other supporters of the fund include Jessica Rolph, founder of child development startup Lovevery, as well as female executives from Netflix, Rent the Runway and Sesame Street, she said.

He argues that millennial and Gen Z moms expect a different set of products, from on-demand transportation services like Zum, to ready meal delivery from DoorDash, and fintech tools like Greenlight that allow parents to instantly fund a child’s debit card.

“We want healthy things. We want subscription things. We want digital communities,” he said.

However, Stern doesn’t want her fund to be perceived as one that only invests in parenting technology. “It’s a consumer fund and we’re focused on mom as the consumer allows us to be broader in our bets,” he said.