Congratulations to Owlet!
After announcing plans to go public via SPAC earlier this year, it’s official: Our portfolio company Owlet is now trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol OWLT.
Owlet is building an ecosystem of connected nursery products, starting with a Smart Sock that allows parents to monitor their baby’s heart rate, oxygen level, sleep patterns, and more. The Smart Sock can be paired with the Owlet Cam to provide a more complete picture of baby’s well-being.
It’s been quite a journey since our initial seed investment in 2014. We don’t want to pat ourselves on the back too much, but this is a deal that we’re particularly proud of, because we still remember reaching out to other investors and getting nearly unanimous feedback suggesting that Owlet would be beaten by Sproutling, a better-funded competitor.
Of course, Owlet’s founders — including Kurt Workman, Jordan Monroe, and Zack Bomsta — deserve 100% of the credit for proving the skeptics wrong. As Kurt noted in a recent interview, more than 1.5 million parents have now downloaded the company’s application and used its products.
In fact, the founders are the reason we invested in the first place, because they were so passionate about what Owlet could achieve. Even in those early conversations, it was clear they wanted to build a mission-driven company. It wasn’t about selling a “Fitbit for babies” or something similarly gimmicky, but rather saving infant lives. We believed in that vision, and we believed that this was the team that could make it a reality.
We’re also grateful that Kurt and his team believed in us, because back in 2014, Eniac was even scrappier than we are now. (Special shout-out to Alex Iskold — then at Techstars NYC, now at 2048 Ventures — for making the introduction.)
And even though going public is a big financial milestone, it’s just another step towards Owlet’s bigger vision. We look forward to seeing the company’s continued growth, as it works towards its ultimate goal of keeping every baby safe.
This news also comes at a big moment for me personally, as I’ve just become a father myself. And of course, I’ve already got an Owlet Smart Sock set up in the nursery.
