Sustainable parenting app YoungPlanet raises £500,000 to boost national expansion

Circular economy parenting app YoungPlanet has raised £500,000 through an “Equity for Parents” crowdfunding campaign as it looks to expand its offering following a year of seismic growth.

YoungPlanet provides a ‘cashless’ platform based on a sharing economy model where parents can list or request a range of different children’s items; from books and clothes to toys and baby equipment. Everything on the app is always given or received for free.

The funding round, which was run via Crowdcube, raised its minimum target of £350,000 (representing 5% in the business) within 7 hours of the campaign going live. The app, which is run by husband and wife duo Jason and Emma Ash, has since overfunded by 56%, raising a total of £547,103. A large number of investors were fellow parents and members of the YoungPlanet community.

The investment will be used to further grow the YoungPlanet community nationally following the app’s recent expansion to all postcodes across the UK, and also to enhance functionality and add key features such as gamification and integrated postage.

Jason Ash, co-founder of YoungPlanet, comments: “YoungPlanet’s mission has been to help parents become more sustainable, and we’re overjoyed that our investors and community members have chosen to invest in this journey with us. Being overfunded within the first 7 hours of our crowdfunding campaign going live was a huge success, and to see that we have overachieved our funding goals by 56% to raise over half a million, shows just how many people believe in our mission.

“As founders, our goal is to transform one of the most wasteful and most costly industries into one of the most sustainable. We’re incredibly proud that people have chosen to join us on our mission to reduce waste, reduce cost and bring communities closer together.”