Seed Round — March 2026

A company built to keep families together through foster and adoption care.

Foster families quit not because they stopped caring, but because the system buries them. Verdly exists to change that — with the infrastructure, support, and connection that keeps good families in the lives of children who need them.

View the investment opportunity Read our story
$1.5M
Seed round target
$1–3B
Total addressable market
~$1.95M
Projected ARR at Month 24
18 mo.
Runway to Series A readiness
Our founding

Verdly wasn't built from a whiteboard.
It was built from a kitchen table.

My husband and I went through the foster care licensing process ourselves. We opened our home, took placements, navigated the system from the inside, and eventually completed an adoption. We lived everything Verdly is designed to address.

The administrative burden isn't just inconvenient. It steals the presence that children in care need most. When a foster parent is drowning in paperwork at 10pm, that frustration has to go somewhere. It redirects onto the kids.

We didn't build Verdly to compete with the system. We built it to give families the support that makes staying possible — so the children in the next room don't pay the price for infrastructure that was never built for the people doing the actual care.

— Ashley, Founder & CEO

The caseworker wasn't picking up. The forms were copies of copies. The kids were in the next room. And I was slowly being hollowed out by a system that was never designed to support me.

That's the moment Verdly came from. Not an insight. A feeling. And a decision that the system could be better — because the kids in the next room deserved better.

Ashley — Founder, licensed foster parent
The crisis behind the numbers

The system wasn't built for the families it depends on.

370,000 children in foster care. 200,000 licensed foster families. And a support infrastructure built almost entirely for agency reporting — not for the people doing the actual work of caring.

370K
Children in U.S. foster care at any given time — each one dependent on a family that the system was not designed to support.
200K
Licensed foster families navigating fragmented records, unreachable caseworkers, compliance chaos, and paperwork that never ends.
30%+
Annual foster family attrition — one of the most measurable indicators that the system is burning through the people it relies on most.

The core dysfunction isn't a lack of caring — it's a failure of infrastructure. Caseworkers spend more time chasing paperwork than providing support. Foster parents disengage before they quit. Children experience placement disruptions that compound the harm they're already carrying. That is the problem Verdly is built to solve.

The competitive landscape

The market leader built everything for agencies.
No one built anything for families.

Platform Agency case mgmt Foster parent portal First family portal Child portal Training / compliance Family-first design
Binti
extendedReach
Salesforce Nonprofit
FosterCare.com / others
Verdly
Full capability
Partial / limited
Not offered

Binti — funded to $60M and serving 49% of U.S. foster children — built its product entirely for agencies. The parent-facing layer is untouched. No existing platform integrates agency case management with meaningful support for foster families, first families, or the children themselves. Verdly doesn't compete with Binti — it fills in what Binti left out.

How Verdly works

One platform. Every voice that shapes a child's experience in care.

We built Verdly around a simple conviction: when every adult in a child's life has what they need — clear communication, easy access to records, tools that actually work — the child is the one who benefits. The platform is how we deliver that. But the goal has always been the family.

Portal 01
Foster parents
Secure messaging, document management, training compliance, milestone tracking, and caseworker coordination — built around the parent's workflow, not the agency's reporting requirements.
Portal 02
Caseworkers & agencies
Dashboard for family oversight, document requests, compliance tracking, and communication logging — integrated with existing case management systems, not replacing them.
Portal 03
First families
A dignified, supported connection layer for the family a child came from — updates, moments, and communication through the agency. No existing platform serves this audience. This is Verdly's most significant competitive differentiator.
Portal 04
Polaris — the child
A child-facing space built for presence and safety — feelings check-ins, a persistent help layer, a Moments feed, a Wishes screen, and age-appropriate tools that give children in care a voice in their own story.
★
Polaris
The child portal

We named the child portal Polaris — the north star — because the child is the fixed point every adult in the system should be orienting toward. Everything in Verdly serves that orientation. Polaris is where the child has a voice: a feelings check-in, coping tools, a feed of moments shared by the people in their life, and a Wishes screen where they can tell the world what they hope for. It's not a feature. It's the reason everything else exists.

The opportunity

A $1–3B market at a federal inflection point.

The child welfare software market is growing at 7–15% annually. 45+ states are replacing legacy CCWIS infrastructure — and the federal government is actively funding modern solutions at a 50% match. No entrant has claimed the parent-facing layer.

$1–3B
Total addressable market
7–15%
Annual market growth
45+
States in CCWIS modernization
50%
Federal financial match for compliant systems
Executive Order: Fostering the Future (Nov 2025)
A federal mandate for modernized child welfare data infrastructure — with funding behind it.
CCWIS Modernization Wave
45+ states replacing 1980s–90s systems, with 50% Federal Financial Participation for compliant modern platforms.
Family First Prevention Services Act
Federal legislation prioritizing family support and prevention — directly aligned with Verdly's retention-first model.
Binti's blind spot
The $60M market leader serves 49% of U.S. foster children — and has built almost nothing for the families caring for them.
Revenue model

Agencies pay. Families benefit. Training compounds the value.

Verdly operates on a B2B model: foster families access the full platform at no cost — the agency pays on their behalf. This removes price as a barrier to adoption, and makes Verdly a benefit agencies offer rather than a subscription families have to justify.

$500–1,500
Per agency / per month
Agency platform license
Caseworker dashboard, document requests, secure messaging, compliance reporting, and family onboarding tools. Foster family access is included at no cost.
$8–12
Per active family / per month · billed to agency
Per-family seat
Scales automatically as an agency's active caseload grows. Average agency carries 25–75 licensed families. This is the growth driver that scales with success.
$300–800
Per module / per agency · unlimited completions
Verdly Training
Module-based continuing education that agencies already have budget for. Pre-service orientation, trauma-informed care, licensure renewal, and therapeutic practices — integrated directly into the platform families already use every day.
Charging families creates churn risk, support burden, and an adoption ceiling — foster parents are already stretched thin. When the agency pays, Verdly becomes part of the onboarding experience. Retention is structural, not earned month-to-month. The training model mirrors how agencies already spend: they are required to provide ongoing training hours and actively purchase third-party content. Verdly Training is a direct replacement for what they're already buying.

Path to $1.95M ARR.

Metric Month 12 Month 18 Month 24
Agency partners2050100+
Active foster families (free)5001,2002,500
Platform license MRR$18,000$47,500$100,000
Per-family seat MRR$5,000$13,200$27,500
Training module revenue (quarterly)$12,000$38,000$95,000
Total ARR~$324K~$872K~$1.95M
Go-to-market

Three phases to becoming the standard support infrastructure for U.S. foster care.

Phase 01 — Months 1–12
Seed & validate
  • MVP: all four portals — foster parent, agency, first family, and Polaris
  • Pilot with 5–10 private agencies and 20 foster families
  • Validate HIPAA / CCWIS compliance architecture and BAA
  • Confirm retention impact: track family dropout rates vs. control group
  • Target: 500 active family accounts, 5 agency partners, first revenue
Phase 02 — Months 12–24
Grow & integrate
  • API integrations with Binti and extendedReach for agency-side sync
  • Training LMS with completion auto-flowing to licensing record
  • AI-assisted caseworker handoff summaries using child profile data
  • Moments moderation and privacy controls for first family sharing
  • Target: 50+ agencies, $872K ARR, Series A readiness
Phase 03 — Year 3+
Scale & policy
  • Statewide agency contracts with CCWIS-compliant data exchange
  • Algorithmic placement matching with portable child profile as input
  • Child voice data as an input to placement quality review
  • Polaris longitudinal outcomes research partnership
  • Target: national standard for foster care experience
The investment

Where the $1.5M goes — and why every dollar is deliberate.

The seed round funds 18 months of runway: from current MVP to pilot launch with 20 agencies, 500 active families, and a clear path to Series A. Every allocation is tied to a phase milestone.

$1.5M
Seed round — 18 months to Series A readiness
40%
Product & engineering
$600,000
Lead engineer hire, Bubble enterprise, infrastructure, security tooling, API integrations
25%
Compliance & legal
$375,000
HIPAA compliance architecture, BAA with Bubble, trademark filing, contracts, data privacy counsel
20%
Sales & partnerships
$300,000
Partnerships hire, travel and agency outreach, discovery program, conference presence, pilot costs
15%
Operations & team
$225,000
Founder salary, operations tooling, insurance, accounting, admin overhead
Hiring plan — Phase 1 (Months 1–12)
Role Start Salary Type Why this hire
Founder / CEO — Ashley Day 1 $100K FT Product vision, investor relations, agency partnerships, brand, operations
Lead Engineer / CTO Month 1 $155K FT Owns the Bubble build, infrastructure, API integrations, security architecture, future native migration
Product Designer Month 2 $92K FT Mobile experience, design system, usability testing with foster families during pilot
Head of Partnerships Month 3 $88K FT Closes first 20 pilot agencies, owns onboarding, leads discovery interviews, builds the agency sales playbook
HIPAA / Compliance Counsel Month 1 $48K Contract Establishes HIPAA compliance framework, reviews BAA, drafts privacy policies and agency data agreements
Hiring plan — Phase 2 (Months 12–24)
Role Start Salary Why this hire
Customer Success Manager Month 13 $68K Family onboarding, support, NPS tracking, and churn prevention
Backend / Data Engineer Month 13 $145K CCWIS-compliant data exchange, Binti / extendedReach API integrations, infrastructure scaling
Account Executive Month 15 $75K Closes private agencies in top 10 metro markets off playbook built in Phase 1
Marketing Manager Month 16 $72K Foster parent community growth, content strategy, agency-facing collateral, press and social
18-month financial summary

Full runway snapshot — seed to Series A.

These are grounded estimates built to provide accurate runway math for due diligence — not aspirational numbers.

~$70K
Monthly burn rate (Year 1 avg)
22+ mo.
Runway with contingency reserve
Mo. 28–32
Break-even target (post–Series A)
Category Year 1 (Mths 1–12) Year 2 / Mths 13–18
Personnel (salaries + benefits)$579,600$349,200
Technology & infrastructure$39,600$22,800
Legal & compliance$81,000$9,000
Sales & marketing$73,000$37,500
General & administrative$28,800$14,400
Total burn$801,600$432,900
$1,234,500
18-month total spend of $1,500,000 raised
$265,500
Reserve / contingency — ~18% buffer
Milestones & success metrics

What success looks like — and when.

Months 1–3
MVP complete, discovery program finished
35 discovery interviews completed; core platform features built and tested with 10 beta families.
Months 3–6
5 pilot agency partners signed and onboarded
Signed MSAs; at least 100 active family accounts; HIPAA compliance signed off by independent counsel.
Month 6
First revenue
$10K+ MRR from agency licenses; first training modules purchased.
Month 12
Pilot complete — Series A prep begins
20 agency partners; 500 active families; NPS > 55; churn < 5%; MRR > $24K.
Month 18
Series A close
50+ agencies; 1,200+ families; training modules in active use across the network; $72K+ MRR; $5–8M raise at $20–30M valuation.
Year 3+
National standard for foster family support
100+ agencies; statewide contracts; CCWIS-compliant data exchange; $1.95M+ ARR; Verdly Studios content library in development.
Risk factors & mitigations

What could go wrong — and what we're doing about it.

Every early-stage company carries risk. These are disclosed honestly, not minimized. Each comes with an active mitigation strategy.

Risk 01
HIPAA compliance complexity
Risk

Child welfare data is highly sensitive. Non-compliance creates legal exposure and kills agency trust instantly.

Mitigation

HIPAA counsel hired Month 1. Privacy rules configured before any data is handled. Third-party audit pre-launch. Bubble's HIPAA-eligible tier from day one.

Risk 02
Agency sales cycle length
Risk

Government-adjacent agencies move slowly. Procurement can take 6–12 months and requires committee approval.

Mitigation

Phase 1 targets private agencies only — faster cycles, less bureaucracy. Founder's direct relationships accelerate early closes. Playbook built before scaling to public agencies.

Risk 03
Solo founder concentration
Risk

Critical decisions, relationships, and product knowledge concentrated in one person creates key-person dependency.

Mitigation

Lead engineer hired Month 1 to distribute technical ownership. Advisory board established Month 3. Head of Partnerships owns agency relationships by Month 6.

Risk 04
No-code scalability ceiling
Risk

Bubble has performance ceilings at scale. High data volume or complex integrations may require native migration.

Mitigation

Bubble chosen deliberately for speed to MVP. Native migration planned for post–Series A. Lead engineer evaluates thresholds throughout Phase 1.

Risk 05
Entrenched competitor response
Risk

Binti or extendedReach adds a parent-facing layer in response to Verdly entering the market.

Mitigation

Verdly's advantage is lived-experience product design and a four-portal ecosystem that an agency-first company cannot replicate with a feature bolt-on. Speed of pilot validation is the defense. A company cannot adopt a family-first identity late — it has to be built in from the start.

The investment opportunity

Join us in building the support system these families deserve.

$1.5M

Seed round to build and pilot the full platform — all four portals — with 5 agencies and 20 foster families. Proving retention impact, validating the child voice layer, and establishing Verdly as the first whole-family support infrastructure in U.S. foster care.

40%
Product & engineering
25%
Compliance & legal
20%
Sales & partnerships
15%
Operations & team
Contact Ashley directly Read our why
Why this. Why now. Why us.

That stack of paperwork.
That's why Verdly exists.

Somewhere tonight, a foster parent is sitting at a kitchen table with a stack of forms — copies of copies — while their kids are in the next room. The caseworker isn't picking up. Won't be back for three weeks. And the person who chose to open their home is slowly being hollowed out by a system that was never designed to support them.

The children in foster care don't just lose homes when families quit. They lose something every single day that a good foster parent is too exhausted, too frustrated, and too buried in paperwork to be fully present. That is the hidden cost. And it is enormous.

Verdly gives that presence back. Built by someone who sat at that table, stared at that stack, and decided the system could be better — because the kids in the next room deserved better.

— Ashley, Founder & CEO, Verdly
invest@verdly.com verdly.com