There They Grow Again

A startup dedicated to helping parents and daycares is looking to expand as it kicked off a crowdfunding campaign recently.

CubbySpot – a website and app which allows parents to find daycare spots for their children in all major Canadian cities, including Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Halifax and Saint John – is applying for a $30,000 grant at the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE)'s SmartStart Seed Fund for non-youth led companies. In order to get the grant, it needs to raise the corresponding amount, with OCE matching the funds raised.

If CubbySpot gets the $60,000 – the $30,000 via the  and the $30,000 match from OCE – it plans to make its first hire (a team member who will help us with our sales and marketing), effectively enter the Quebec market and continue product development.

The start-up, which got its humble start in Toronto, has 12,000 daycares in its database. This is the largest collection of daycare listings across Canada in a mobile app.

Named one of Toronto's Most Promising Startups by the Founder Institute, the website also has listings of licensed child care centres in other cities in Ontario and British Columbia.

Company co-founder and chief executive officer Regnard Raquedan and his wife, Liza, founded CubbySpot after they had trouble finding a daycare for their daughter. After countless Internet searches and endless waiting lists, they came up with CubbySpot, which has allowed Canadians to search for daycare services.

“Your help will enable us to continue working on a tremendous free product for parents and daycares, said said Raquedan. “Whether you are a parent looking for an easy-to-use way to find a daycare for your little one or a daycare director, owner, or manager looking to fill full-time, part-time, and backup/emergency openings in your centre, CubbySpot can help.”

CubbySpot has been raking in honours since its inception. It was named one of three finalists at the 2015 Ignite Capital startup competition in the Immigrant category, and was one of the 10 winners at the 2016 Brightlane Entrepreneur Awards. It was also one of 30 finalists in the Global Innovation through Science and Technology (GIST) Tech-I Competition, an annual competition for science and technology entrepreneurs from emerging economies worldwide.