Mother Ventures views mothers as the ‘economic engine’

As families across the United States prepare to celebrate Mother’s Day on Sunday, Allison Stern is looking beyond just a day of appreciation.

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

“In the United States, mothers are responsible for 85% of household purchases and have $2.4 trillion in spending power,” Stern (pictured below) told TechCrunch. “The numbers show that mothers are the buyers, and in fact they are a unique economic driver.”

Stern, a mother of two, leverages this spending clout by backing startups that reflect the needs of modern mothers. Since launching Mother Ventures two years ago, it has already deployed $4 million into 13 startups. Its portfolio includes coral care, which allows for this Instant booking of pediatric specialists for children with developmental delays, and the Tin Can, a popular Wi-Fi-enabled, retro-style “landline.” Phone for children.

Before launching her own fund, she co-founded Tubular Labs, a social video analytics startup that helped generate $25 million in annual recurring revenue before a private equity buyout in 2023 and served as an operating partner at The Chernin Group (TCG), a consumer-focused growth equity firm.

Part of TCG’s investment thesis included backing companies that serve “unique audiences that have been overlooked by spending power,” such as Barstool Sports, which originally targeted Boston sports fans, she said.

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

Stern convinced Tony James, former president and chief operating officer of Blackstone and current chairman of Costco, to back Mother Ventures as an LP anchor. Other backers of the fund include Jessica Rolfe, founder of child development startup Lovevery, as well as female executives from Netflix, Rent the Runway and Sesame Street, she said.

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

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

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