Infant services platform Tot Squad in Sherman Oaks has sold its baby equipment cleaning business to BabyQuip, a rental service for baby gear based in the Bay Area. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Tot Squad connects parents with a network of childcare professionals such as sleep and lactation consultants and car seat installers. The company’s cleaning service makes house calls for crib and stroller sanitization and repair. The acquired line of business has been rebranded as BabyQuip Cleaning Services. It has already started offering equipment cleaning and restoration for parents in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and will soon expand to BabyQuip’s other active markets in the U.S. and Canada. In L.A., the service will still operate out of Tot Squad’s Sherman Oaks office, which will retain its employees. BabyQuip will train its network of over 600 “quality providers” – independent contractors who rent out their own baby gear on BabyQuip’s platform – on Tot Squad’s cleaning methods. “Especially now, given the heightened concern due to COVID-19, our community of Quality Providers will soon provide these cleaning services to local parents concerned about the gear they already own,” said BabyQuip Chief Executive Fran Maier in a statement. Also, BabyQuip will take over Tot Squad’s partnership with rideshare app Uber, in which the cleaning service sanitizes car seats and handles for Uber drivers in New York City. BabyQuip was featured on ABC’s “Shark Tank” television show in March, where Maier turned down a proposed $500,000 investment from celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary. The same week, BabyQuip closed a seed round totaling $850,000 from nearly 100 individual investors on crowdfunding platform SeedInvest. Tot Squad was founded in 2010 by Chief Executive Jennifer Saxton, and has served nearly 100,000 families.
