We’re now backed by double Emmy© winning creators and 32 of the UK’s top technology investors.
But in the beginning, it was just us.
In fact, Charlene and I originally created Sooper Books for ourselves.
Charlene is an absurdly talented, award-winning illustrator and I love writing stories, so it all started as a hobby.
Then Charlene got pregnant.
This is really what pushed us to publish our stories.
Because the science says reading with children from birth has countless mental health and development benefits.
And we wanted to be reading our own stories to Goldie, so we put them online for easy access.
Then came the national lockdown in March 2020.
Charlene was 8 months pregnant at this point and everything turned upside down.
We got a phone call.
It was Charlene’s sister (a primary teacher and mum of 5) asking if she could get access to our stories to help with homeschooling.
We said, sure.
Then more and more parents asked.
Then schools started asking.
We decided to send an email to all the primary schools in the UK giving them access to our stories for free during lockdown.
Then things blew up.
Hundreds of UK primary schools started using Sooper Books from that moment.
Just 6 weeks after sending that email we jumped to #1 in Google for “bedtime stories” in over 50 countries.
And this catapulted our pageviews from zero to 2.3 million in a few months.
We’ve now surpassed 12 million views.
This rapid growth didn’t go unnoticed.
In November 2021, we received pre-seed investment from 2 of the UK’s top technology-focused venture capital companies and 30 high profile angel investors.
And since then we’ve hired a world-class team, developed a brand new low-cost Netflix style publishing model and published 250 exclusive stories and audiobooks.
But our mission hasn’t changed.
We’re still reading every day with Goldie to give her the best start in life.
But now we’re helping thousands of families to do the same.