Peanut, the newly launched app created to help like-minded mamas connect, today announces its seed investment round led by Sweet Capital Investment (the founders of Candy Crush) and the Female Founders Fund. Other notable investors include Greycroft and Sound Ventures (The venture capital firm founded by Ashton Kutcher), who join existing investors NEA, Felix and Partech. The raise amount remains undisclosed, with plans for the funds to further grow the team, whilst focussing on building the community of Peanut users.

Launched in February, Peanut is aimed at a mobile-first generation of women and is a smart and chic solution for mothers to chat, meet up with, and learn from like-minded women. The founder of Peanut, Michelle Kennedy, gained recognition in the tech industry by successfully transforming globally renowned dating platform Badoo, and was integral to the launch of Bumble. Since it’s launch, Peanut now has over 160k female members, generating over 17 million swipes.

Peanut’s co-founder and CTO, is Greg Orlowski (co-founder and former CTO of Deliveroo). Peanut uses an algorithm that helps connect women based on commonalities including location, interests, mutual friends, languages, the age and gender of their children, and their educational background, amongst other things. The app utilises machine learning and a smart algorithm to understand user behaviour, thus personalising the experience and creating more meaningful connections.

The app also includes features which are designed to make the experience as seamless as possible; including group chats, the ability to suggest and poll meetup times, send invitations to mamas and add meetings directly into users’ calendars.

On the raise, Michelle Kennedy said, ‘Raising this seed round represents an exciting moment for Peanut. We have established that women want to connect with like-minded women on the topic of motherhood. Women deserved a product reflective of modern motherhood, and we’re so happy that Peanut can provide that. Receiving backing from such stellar investors is testament to the progress Peanut has made in such a short period of time, and we’re so excited to start the next chapter of Peanut.’

Christian Dörffer, co-Founder of Sweet Capital adds ‘We are thrilled about our investment in the Peanut App and to partner with Michelle Kennedy and her impressive team. Through our Candy Crush experience, we know that women love to support other women on smartphones all over the world. Mothers are especially helpful when it comes to supporting each other through the early childhood years and as the Peanut team rolls out its full product roadmap, we believe it could become the primary way to socialise and learn about important topics.’

Anu Duggal, Partner, Female Founders Fund continues, ‘We are thrilled to lead the Series Seed round in Peanut having spent the last twelve months getting to know Michelle and her team. Six months post launch, Peanut has developed a strong following amongst moms globally with a vision to redefine the modern motherhood experience.’

Peanut is a London-based company founded by Michelle Kennedy and Greg Orlowski.

Michelle Kennedy played a major role in the success of two dating apps – Badoo and Bumble – and has unprecedented experience and understanding of the safety and growth elements of building a social product. She has a 3 yr old boy and was inspired to create Peanut after struggling to meet other mothers she could relate to.

Greg, who is also a new parent, is familiar with the world of startups having co-founded online food delivery service Deliveroo where he served as CTO and Board Director. He has a wealth of experience leading engineering projects across multiple industries.

In June 2017, Peanut was chosen as the debut ‘Meet the Developer’ content piece for the launch of the new App Store and iOS.