Bengaluru childcare start-up Maasi raises Rs 6 crore led by Better Capital

Maasi, a Bengaluru start-up that offers verified nannies on demand, has raised about Rs 6 crore in a pre-seed funding round led by Better Capital, with Antler India also investing, the company announced on Wednesday, October 28, 2026. The round came about a week after Maasi's public launch on October 20. Rapido co-founder Rishikesh SR and Shadowfax co-founder Vaibhav Khandelwal are among the angel investors.

Finding reliable childcare is one of the biggest everyday problems for working parents in Indian cities. As more families live as nuclear households, away from grandparents, and as more women return to work after having children, the gap between demand and trustworthy supply has grown. Most families still find nannies through word of mouth or local agencies, with little background checking, no standard training and no backup when a nanny does not turn up.

Maasi's pitch is to turn this informal market into an organised service: caregivers who are verified and trained by the company, booked through an app either by the hour or on a monthly plan. The company grew out of Urban Parents Club, a community of more than 8,000 parents in Bengaluru, which gave it a ready base of early users. Its early numbers, more than 4,000 waitlist sign-ups in five days, are the company's own and suggest strong interest, though converting sign-ups into paying, repeat customers is the real test.

The investor list is also telling. Founders of Rapido, a bike-taxi app, and Shadowfax, a delivery logistics company, both built businesses by organising large numbers of gig workers. Their backing points to the core challenge Maasi faces: recruiting, training and keeping hundreds of caregivers while maintaining safety and quality in a job that involves young children.

For the caregivers, mostly women, a platform model can offer more regular work and some formal training, but it also raises the usual gig-economy questions about pay, working hours and social security. How Maasi handles those will matter as it grows.

Short-term: Maasi plans to use the money to recruit and train more caregivers and strengthen its app in Bengaluru, which should mean wider availability for parents in the city.

Long-term: If the model works, it could expand to other cities and push the wider childcare market towards verified, trained and accountable caregivers. Competition from other home-services platforms is likely.

Who is affected: Working parents in Bengaluru, especially mothers returning to work; women seeking caregiving jobs; existing nanny agencies; and investors watching consumer services start-ups.

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