The process of finding a nursery proved fraught, stressful and time-consuming for Steven Clarke, so he created Rightmove for the early years sector.
See our guide to this year’s hottest new businesses and most exceptional founders in the complete 2026 Startups 100 index.
Founder: Steven Clarke
Year founded: 2024
Website: nuuri.co.uk
Confusing, stressful and outdated is how founder Steven Clarke describes trying to find a nursery place for his daughter. Clarke said what he hoped would be a straightforward process was blighted by “endless waitlists, scattered information and a lack of transparency”.
To make the childcare experience far better for other parents, Clarke designed Nuuri: a digital-first platform to modernise nursery search and pre-enrolment for parents and providers. His plan was to create a platform that would give parents the information they needed but also save nursery providers time by cutting down the volume of emails and phone calls they had to field. The idea was to turn the process from frenetic to seamless.
However, as a first-time founder without a track record in tech, it was a steep hill for Clarke to climb. “What got me through was the support of friends and family who believed in me early on, giving me the confidence to keep going,” he says.
What got me through was the support of friends and family who believed in me early on, giving me the confidence to keep going,
Isolation is a challenge faced by all founders. Clarke reached out to the startup ecosystem for advice and mentorship; and found a support network of “people who had done it before”. Soon after the venture saw its first invoice settled – the UK’s second-largest nursery group approached the team to onboard. Clarke says, “that mix of early revenue, industry validation and personal impact made it all real”.
Now the London-based venture is onboarding some of the largest nursery groups in the UK. “Alongside this, we’re in active discussions with major property search platforms in Europe about partnerships that would integrate nursery search into their ecosystems, opening up access to millions of parents,” Clarke adds.
Alongside this, we’re in active discussions with major property search platforms in Europe about partnerships that would integrate nursery search into their ecosystems, opening up access to millions of parents,
After securing £275k in pre-seed funding last July, the plan is to expand the platform to include the wider early years sector and, ultimately, to become “as synonymous with finding childcare as Rightmove is with finding a home”.
View the full Startups 100 Index for 2026
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