LullaFeed™

LullaFeed™ is the world’s first patented music-powered feeding solution that attaches to the bottom of a baby bottle, on a mission to help the nearly 60% of infants (and their parents) that struggle with feeding. Developed by two neonatal experts, the smart technology provides research-based lullaby music reinforcement synchronized to the baby’s feeding pattern along with mobile app-based insights and analytics for caregivers to track progress. LullaFeed™ taps into the $197B baby tech industry, where caregivers are seeking digital and data-based solutions to give them confidence and assurance that their infant is growing healthy and strong. In the video below, learn more from founders Michael and Rebekah about how LullaFeed™ is set to revolutionize infant care.

One of the biggest fears of a new parent is that their baby won’t eat. We’re here to take that stress away, making sure infants get a strong and healthy start.

Founders Michael and Rebekah see these problems every day in their work with infants and parents in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

It's estimated that 57% of children, or 74.1 million each year, may experience challenges with feeding. These issues present for a variety of reasons, but most often:

• in infants born prematurely
• at the end of maternity leave when the mother returns to work
• in infants born with a developmental delay
• for infants with common issues like a tongue tie

Today, parents are left with trial-and-error troubleshooting using different bottles or nipples hoping their baby will feed. In the most severe cases, they end up in the ER admitted with "failure to thrive".

When feeding challenges present, no time can be wasted. Infants require adequate nutrition for optimal growth and development and if problems aren't resolved, there can be long term impacts.

These issues no longer need to be a parent's worst nightmare. With LullaFeed™, the baby will have the lullaby of their parent's love supporting them and encouraging them through the feeding journey, ensuring they are growing healthy and strong, one LullaFeed™ at a time!

The LullaFeed™ system consists of two components: 1) our baby bottle attachment and 2) our mobile app. Our smart baby bottle attachment fits onto variously sized bottles with its flexible “sleeve” design.

The LullaFeed™ attachment contains multiple sensors used to detect infant feeding patterns and when feeding is detected, the parent’s pre-recorded voice plays back to the infant via an embedded speaker as a reward and encouragement for the infant to continue feeding. In short, if the infant drinks, they hear their parent’s lullaby. If they stop drinking, the lullaby stops. Because infants are attentive to and seek their parent’s voice, they suck again to keep the music on, in turn strengthening the neurologic and oral-motor systems for feeding.

The science here is contingent music, which is supported by over three decades of published clinical research to improve infant development, behavior, and feeding skills (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).

And it gets better, other studies have shown that even the parents have positive responses to music with their baby including reduced stress(1, 2, 3) and improved parent-infant bonding(1, 2).

Our mobile app is initially used to record the parent’s voice for the LullaFeed™ bottle attachment and can later be used to gather insights and analytics on the infant’s feeding performance from the feeding data collected.

Upon first using the app, the parent selects a few favorite lullabies from our playlist of pre-loaded guides. Then, while recording, the parent sings along to the guide voice and is also supported with our in-app karaoke style platform including a rhythmic vibration of the phone ensuring singing is at a tempo of 60 beats per minute, which matches the baby’s average suck rate at 1 suck/second.

The app also allows parents to track how feedings are improving, how much milk their baby took, how long feedings are taking, how many successful feeds were taken each day, and more.

As we are rapidly approaching our launch to market, we announced a waitlist signup at LullaFeed.com in October '23, which has clearly established our product-market fit. See what customers had to say for yourself on Michael's and Rebekah's post here!

The excitement has continued, too. We have demonstrated market validation with over 300 waitlist signups!

We’re first launching LullaFeed™ as a consumer health product to gain market feedback and prepare for, and help fund, a medical device version which will be used in hospitals with the tiniest and sickest of infants.

At our current cost of goods (per 10K units) this will yield a 66% gross margin.

After launching online to consumers and building out the medical device iteration, we'll commercialize to NICUs and outpatient feeding clinics.

LullaFeed™ taps into the $197B baby tech industry as our total addressable market, growing at an estimated CAGR of 8.9%. Our SAM is the US baby tech industry ($46B), and our obtainable market is the 59% of *non-Medicaid covered families facing early feeding challenges (57%), representing a $15.47B annual opportunity.

*We are in early conversations with hospital foundations and local grant-based programs to offer LullaFeed™ at reduced prices or for free to families who otherwise couldn't afford it.

Our waitlist campaign has revealed an even broader interest, though: 2/3 of parent signups are still expecting or have infants without feeding issues, highlighting the universal appeal of music and feeding analytics, beyond just problem-solving.

Additionally, 3/4 of our sign-ups were either friends and family that want to buy LullaFeed™ as a baby shower gift or caregivers like daycare providers that want to use this in their job. 

Pitchbook reported that “Venture-backed parent-tech companies in the US have attracted nearly $1.4 billion in 2021…that total is larger than what the category garnered in the previous four years combined.” And, it makes sense: with a million more millennial women becoming mothers each year – mothers who prefer to stay in the workplace – they are increasingly relying on technology solutions to give them peace of mind that their new baby is safe and sound.

Parents are seeking objective data and analytics to give them confidence their baby is growing and thriving and we’re the first company to bring forth a sensor-based, insight-focused, music-powered, and baby-tailored feeding product.

We bring an extraordinarily unique blend of expertise to LullaFeed™. As a neonatal music therapist and a speech-language pathologist/infant feeding specialist, we have a combined 25+ years of experience in treating, researching, and feeding infants.

Our work is grounded in our daily patient interactions, giving us a deep understanding of the challenges and concerns faced by parents and caregivers, ensuring LullaFeed™ is developed from a foundation of expertise and real world knowledge.

The capital raised from this community round will directly support the final productization of LullaFeed™.

Our next effort is to incorporate customer feedback from our current alpha unit trial into the buildout of a beta/market-ready unit.

LullaFeed™ has closed capital from notable institutional investors including Render Capital, The Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation, CATO Neonatal Innovations, Inc., and eight neonatologists (yes, even baby doctors are rooting for us!) as well as 13 other angel investors.

We opened this community investment round to give our fans, supporters, and cheerleaders the opportunity to invest alongside of our institutional investors. Together, we're going to bring LullaFeed™ to market, giving parents assurance and peace of mind, and babies the best chance of growing up healthy and strong!