Freestyle is a Santa Monica-based, high-performance baby care company building premium diapers and wipes for modern parents who refuse to choose between performance, clean materials, and good design. Founded in 2022 by two dads, Russ Wallace and Mike Constantiner, the brand pairs proprietary absorbency technology (its BambooTek tree-free core and 7-layer Skin Shield system) with Total Chlorine Free, EWG Verified materials. After closing a $10M Series A led by Silas Capital in March 2026, Freestyle is scaling across Walmart, Target, Whole Foods, Amazon, and its own subscription channel.
Babylist is the operating system for new parenthood — a universal baby registry that grew into an ecommerce destination, a content engine, a healthcare brand, and now a chain of experiential showrooms. Founded in 2011 by ex-Amazon engineer Natalie Gordon, the company hit $750M in 2025 revenue while staying founder-led, profitable, and unapologetically focused on the parent.
Natalie Gordon is the CEO and Founder of Babylist, the universal baby registry and family commerce platform she coded during her son's nap time in 2011. A University of Waterloo computer science graduate and Amazon Fresh alum, she turned a personal frustration with big-box registries into a profitable, $750M+ annual revenue business serving millions of families. She has expanded Babylist beyond registries into first-party ecommerce, editorial content, and a health vertical covering insurance-reimbursed breast pumps—including Medicaid recipients. In 2025, she launched the 'End the Baby Tax' campaign, uniting 30 baby brands against tariffs in a full-page Washington Post ad and a Times Square billboard. Named a 2026 CNBC Changemaker, she is one of the most trusted voices in the parenting and family retail space.
PatPat is a global direct-to-consumer children's and family apparel brand founded in 2014 by two engineer-fathers, Albert Wang and Ken (Can) Gao. It uses a data-driven, mobile-first model to deliver affordable, trend-forward kids' clothing, family matching outfits, and proprietary innovations like the stain-resistant Go-Neat fabric and the light-up Go-Glow line to more than 23 million customers across 140+ countries.
Winnie is a San Francisco-based childcare marketplace that connects millions of parents with licensed daycare centers, preschools, and early education providers across the United States. Founded in 2016 by Sara Mauskopf and Anne Halsall - two former Google and Postmates engineers who were also parents - Winnie has grown from a local San Francisco app into a national platform covering 200,000+ licensed providers in over 7,000 cities. The platform combines comprehensive data (tuition costs, licensing status, inspection reports, availability) with community reviews and a SaaS layer for providers called Winnie Pro. Ranked #177 on the 2023 Inc. 5000 list and #1 in Consumer Services, Winnie sits at the intersection of a 500-billion-dollar childcare crisis and a generation of parents who expect the same search experience for daycares that they get for restaurants.
Sara Mauskopf is the CEO and co-founder of Winnie, a marketplace helping millions of parents find daycare, preschool, and childcare across the United States. A MIT computer science graduate and former product leader at YouTube, Twitter, and Postmates, she co-founded Winnie in 2016 after struggling to find childcare for her first child. Under her leadership, Winnie has raised $15.5M in funding, serves over 4 million parents, covers 250K+ licensed providers across 7,000+ U.S. cities, and ranked #177 on the 2023 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies - earning the #1 Consumer Services Company spot.
Emily Oster is a Harvard-trained economist, Brown University professor, and the mind behind ParentData - a platform transforming how millions of parents make decisions. With four consecutive New York Times bestsellers, TIME's 100 Most Influential People recognition, and over a million books sold, she wields data like a scalpel against pregnancy myths and parenting guilt, convincing readers that evidence beats anxiety every time.
Virginia Sole-Smith is an award-winning journalist, NYT-bestselling author, and creator of Burnt Toast - a newsletter and podcast with 66,000+ subscribers dedicated to dismantling diet culture and anti-fat bias. Her books 'The Eating Instinct' (2018) and 'Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture' (2023) have made her one of the most influential voices in fat liberation and body-positive parenting. She writes with unflinching clarity and warmth, blending rigorous investigative reporting with deeply personal narrative.