Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigns, UPS shares fall more than 13%, and Forerunner backs a new platform for parents’ middle-of-the-night questions. Have a wonderful Wednesday!
– Ask an expert. As an investor at Forerunner, Kirsten Green’s firm focused on backing consumer businesses, Eurie Kim had long been interested in the parenting space. But she found it difficult to identify a business that could keep up with the changing needs of parents. “As soon as you’re done with one problem, you’re onto the next one,” Kim says. “Lifetime value—how long a customer is going to stay with you—is very challenged.”
Kim recently changed her mind on the viability of a parenting-focused business when she came across Joy, a new tech platform for parents. Founded by Emily Greenberg, Charlie Carpenter, and CEO Alan Charming Chan, the startup aims to serve as a kind of 24/7 lifeline for parents. Forerunner has led a $10 million seed round in Joy, Fortune is the first to report. Other investors include Magnify Ventures, Wesley Capital, and Obvious Ventures.
Caregivers can text experts for live advice on issues like feeding and sleep, they can read and watch personalized content about parenting topics, and shop for products via an e-commerce platform. Access to the platform costs $8 a month. Kim compares it to another Forerunner investment in the pet food brand the Farmer’s Dog. “When you build trust with your customer…in an area that really matters, you can sell them whatever over time,” she says.
“The ability to put all these disparate services together into a broader platform was exactly what I felt I needed as a parent and, from an investor standpoint, exactly what we needed to break the challenge we hit around how you could keep your customer for longer than two weeks—because as soon as your lactation problem is over, now I’m onto sleep, now I’m onto rashes,” Kim says.
Joy’s parenting support platform is similar to Summer Health, a text-based platform for parents to talk to pediatricians, but without the medical expertise. Joy aims to serve as a similar resource for all non-medical questions, from the contents of a diaper to a parent feeling like they’re not bonding with their baby. “Sometimes it’s not that you need a doctor, it’s just that you need to talk to somebody,” Kim says. The platform relies on AI for some communication with users and to find caregivers more personalized answers to their questions than a Google search would.
Greenberg, one of Joy’s cofounders, says Joy is filling a role now held by an army of paid consultants for issues like lactation and sleep; Google; social media; and texting friends and family. She recalls her own experience as a new parent: “It was hard, it was lonely and isolating,” she remembers. “I felt like I was coming up short and looking for something to stitch it all together.”
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Stepping down. U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has resigned, following the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump and intense criticism of her agency. “As your director, I take full responsibility for the security lapse,” Cheatle wrote in a letter to agency staff. Washington Post
- Hillary on Harris. In a new opinion column, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argued that Kamala Harris can beat Donald Trump and urged voters to not fear the challenges posed by Harris’s background. “It is a trap to believe that progress is impossible.” New York Times
- Handle with care. UPS’s shares dropped over 13%, marking the company’s largest intraday fall in more than 15 years. The company is shipping more packages than last year, according to CEO Carol Tomé. But UPS is turning less profit and is under a new—and pricey—union contract. Bloomberg
- Pumping the brakes. General Motors, led by Mary Barra, is delaying its electric vehicle and factory plans, staying mindful of demand. The company’s second-quarter earnings of $48 billion exceeded Wall Street’s expectations of $45 billion. Wall Street Journal
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
- AG1, the nutrition brand also known as Athletic Greens, promoted president and COO Kat Cole to CEO; the former Focus Brands COO will succeed AG1's founder.
- Retail tech platform Radar appointed Morgan Levine as general counsel. Levine was previously vice president of legal and compliance at Farfetch.
ON MY RADAR
‘The system is not working for women’: Companies with return-to-office mandates are hemorrhaging female talent Fortune
Harvard sued by former women’s hockey coach over alleged sex discrimination Wall Street Journal
The Brat-ification of Kamala Harris The Atlantic
PARTING WORDS
“I can’t imagine what Kamala’s actual day was like.”
—Allison Reese, a comedian known on TikTok for her impression of Vice President Kamala Harris, on the “weirdly crazy” day she had when President Joe Biden endorsed Harris
