Zoobean is a curated catalog of children’s books. Every book on the site is recommended by parents and categorized using “common sense” tags. Parents can search for books that explore specific themes, like bullying, the death of a pet, or magic as well as browse by age group, character background, or genre.

Zoobean was founded by a husband-and-wife duo who both built a carer in education. Felix Brandon Lloyd was named a Washington, D.C., Teacher of the Year for 2000-2001. He went on to build and sell a platform called Skill-Life that taught children about financial literary through online games. Jordan Lloyd Bookey is a former teacher who also directed a DC-based nonprofit supporting literacy efforts in low-income neighborhoods and is the outgoing head of Google’s K-12 Education Outreach.

This educational power couple was expecting their second children and searching for a book to teach their 3-year-old son about what it meant to be a big brother. Identifying relevant books proved to be a challenge.

“At the time we could not easily find books that told stories about new experiences and featured a brother and sister and a multiracial family,” they said in an email. “In stores, books were organized by genre, author, or very broad themes that weren’t really relevant for them. We also searched many popular shopping websites, but the information was overwhelming and impersonal.  In the end, we were frustrated and empty-handed. Parents and educators rely on remarkable books to help connect children to their worlds and we decided to create Zoobean to address a need that benefits families and helps children imagine and achieve anything.”

The books are indexed by a team of 10 curators using over 500 tags. Parents can filter the search queries down to exactly what they are looking for or browse through “Most Loved” books or those featuring the most “hearts” (the Zoobean version of a Facebook “like”). The company offers a subscription service, direct sales of featured books and affiliate sales of books in its catalog.

The founders said their mission is to become “the most trusted curator for the $25 billion dollar market for children’s books, games, and other educational products.”

To help them achieve this goal, Kapor Capital has led a seed investment of $500,000 with participation from angels. It is a big market with competitors ranging from startups like Sproutkin to large e-retailers and publishers including Amazon, Scholastic, and non-profit Common Sense Media. Zoobean is based in Washington D.C.

Parents and children are forever locked in battles over household tasks. ChoreMonster publicly launched today, just in time for the New Year. It turns chores into an engaging game. The company also announced that it has raised a total of $1.125 million in seed funding.

Using the ChoreMonster suite of apps, parents can get their kids “begging to do their chores.” Moms and dads set up a digital point system that translates into real-life rewards. Kids earn points when they complete a specific task and then redeem them for rewards like a hug, ice cream, a new video game, or a fun excursion. The kids also have access to their own dashboard, where they can track their chores and progress towards their goals. In addition to points, children also collect interactive monsters.

During its five-month private beta, kids completed 314,600 chores on ChoreMonster at an average of 11 chores per week (see infographic below). The top 5 chores were making the bed, picking up after themselves, cleaning the bedroom, helping to feed pets, and taking care of dirty laundry. The top rewards were ice cream, cash allowance, movie night, sleepovers, and computer time.

Despite the fact that the system takes away any intrinsic motivation kids may have to help out, parents are excited by how much easier it makes household care. Founder Paul Armstrong wrote in a blog post that his goal is to improve life for both parents and their kids.

“The arduous task of getting our child to do a chore becomes a war,” he said. “We get tired of nagging and fighting while our child is exasperated and worn out; and managing a chore becomes more of a chore than the act itself!  The solutions are often more about what we parents understand than what our children understand. Our desire isn’t to make a parental chore management tool — while that is part of our strategy and goal, it isn’t the solution to the problem. Our goal is make a lifestyle enhancer.”

The redesigned web app is live today and the updated iOS app is on the way. It is free to use, although a premium version is available for $4.99 a month. This investment was raised from CincyTech, Vine Street Ventures, and other angel investors. ChoreMonster is based in Cincinnati. Competitors include You Rule, iReward, HighScore House, and Chore Hero.

Zulily, a daily deal’s site for moms and their kids, has just announced raising $85 million from prestigious venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. This fourth round of funding sets Zulily’s valuation at $1 billion.

Zulily presents flash sales that last for an average of 72 hours. Users receive an email every morning with the daily offerings and have access to around 35 new sales a day. Members can get up to 70% off items like clothing, toys, and kid-centric home goods.

Zulily recently crossed the 10 million member threshold. According to Andreessen partner Jeff Jordan, innovative startups are shaking up e-commerce companies and physical stores alike, and the firm “could not possibly be more bullish on the prospects for e-commerce.”

“We believe we’re in the early stages of a revolution in retail, where inefficient physical businesses are giving way to highly efficient, innovate online ones,” he said  in a blog post. “Zulily is one of the fastest growing businesses we have ever encountered. What is even more impressive is how they have done this: The company spent minimal capital to achieve this result.”

Jordan also underscored that Zulily’s success has had much to do with its entrance into new markets, such as women’s apparel and housewares, the strategic positioning that sets the company apart from e-commerce giants like Amazon, and its data-driven approach to marketing, merchandising, and operations.

Since raising $43 million last August, Zulily has moved order fulfillment in-house, built two shipping centers, and expanded internationally. Today, it also announced the launch of the app for iPad. This recent investment brings the total amount raised to $138 million and will be used to scale the platform.

“Zulily is all about moms — in under three years, we’ve seen tremendous growth combined with the loyalty and passion of our customers, which inspires us to do more every day,” said CEO Darrell Cavens, “The vast majority of purchases come from repeat customers, and we need to continue to surprise and delight them. Additional funding will allow us to expand more quickly and continue to enhance the experience for today’s busy mom.”

Cavens formerly served as the senior vice president of marketing and technology at Blue Nile, an online retailer of fine jewelry. He launched Zulily in 2010. The company is headquartered in Seattle and has 600 employees across the U.S.

Teens, get ready to slam your bedroom doors and start pouting, because new research suggests that it’s common practice for your parents to spy on you by secretly accessing your Facebook account.

In the U.S., 60 percent of parents access teens’ Facebook profiles without their knowledge, and moms are a tad more guilty than dads, according to security software company AVG, which surveyed 4,400 parents of teens ages 14 to 17.

The social snooping behavior is not unique to American parents. Sixty-six percent of parents in Canada and 51 percent of parents in the U.K. do it too. Across 11 countries, 44 percent of parents admit to the stealthy activity. And boy oh boy are the ‘rents in for an unsettling surprise: 21 percent of parents have seen explicit or abusive messages on their teen’s social profile.

Surveyed parents also expressed concern around the future consequences of content their children are posting to social networks, and worried about the lack of educational instruction on the subject. According to AVG’s research, 40 percent of American parents fear that their teens’ Facebook updates will hurt their job prospects later in life, and almost half of all parents around the world said that schools were not effective in teaching their teens to use the Internet responsibly.

Perhaps that explains why even more parental units are taking an above-board stance and openly friending their kids on Facebook. In the U.S., 72 percent are connected with their teens on Facebook, AVG said.

And parents may want to consider their own digital behaviors before pointing the finger elsewhere. In the U.S., according to AVG, 92 percent of children have an online presence by the time they are two because parents are posting photos and other information to social networks. And more children between the ages of two and five know how to play with a smartphone application (19 percent) than tie their shoes (9 percent).

Photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Famigo launched a review site that makes it easier to discover family friendly Android apps in July. Now it is adding support for Apple iOS apps today. The Family App Review is a web site with app reviews that makes it easier to discover mobile content that is appropriate for your kids.

All of the reviews on the site are written by humans and are curated to feature the best kid-friendly apps, games, eBooks, and other apps. The site has its own search engine for apps that allows parents to search by category and age group.

The “power search” feature is pretty useful because you can enter the age of the child. Then you can check off whether you want an app that “appeals to a wide audience,” is “good for road trips,” or is “great for tablets.” There are 14 categories where you can check off what you want, and there are 17 categories where you can exclude features that “contain profanity,” “contain violence,” or has “in-app purchases.”

Q Beck, founder and CEO of Austin, Texas-based Famigo, said in an interview that the site addresses the huge problem of discovery (a common theme at our past DiscoveryBeat events) where there are hundreds of thousands of apps available in the Android Market and Apple App Store. Famigo helps weed out the bad stuff and zero-in on the content that parents want for their kids.

“Parents don’t want to be the taste testers for the apps their children use,” Beck said. “They don’t have the time for it. We want to be the one-stop source for mobile discovery for parents.”

Parents can sign up to receive a weekly email that recommends the best apps for their favorite platform, with the recommendations tailored to their own tastes. Famigo tests each app with its own internal review team. App ratings are determined by a team that scores apps based on topics such as “Ease of Use,” “Educational Value,” “Entertainment” and “Family Usefulness.” Each review has a link to the store so that you can purchase the apps directly.

The scores from each category are calculated and processed through an algorithm that draws on user analytics and research to mirror how families make their own choices. The reviews  tell you what’s cool about the app and what’s “drool,” or bad. The web site is free for users. Famigo makes money through an affiliate partnership program with Android. If you purchase a game or app after reading a review, Famigo gets a share of it.

Beck said that about 40 percent of the site traffic comes from organic searches. The company has done a little advertising, but most of its traffic is coming from parents sharing the information with their friends.

Beck and Matt Sullivan co-founded Famigo in 2009. Rivals include CommonSense Media, Appsfire, Appolicious Family, and Bloom Worlds. Famigo tries to do a better job with all-human reviews and by getting reviews up fast. Famigo has marketed its site at the “mommy bloggers” who share tips for busy parents. The company has six full-time employees. Funding hasn’t been disclosed. The company was incubated with Austin’s Capital Factory incubator.