Amy VanHaren, Pumpspotting’s founder, stands in front of the Pumpspotting RV in New York City. (Photo/Pumpspotting)

MassChallenge has picked Pumpspotting, a Maine-based startup that’s developed a mobile app and social network for mothers who are breastfeeding and pumping, as one of 26 finalists from its 2018 cohort.

Pumpspotting, which is based in Kittery, was one of 128 startups that took part in MassChallenge’s Boston-based startup accelerator program. The 26 finalists will now move into the final judging round, where they’ll compete for shares of $1.5 million in equity-free funding to be awarded at the MassChallenge Awards on Oct. 17, 2018, in Boston.

Amy VanHaren, Pumpspotting’s founder, describes her company as “a social app and global community connecting breastfeeding women over milk, motherhood, and the best places to nurse and pump.”

VanHaren, who also runs VanHaren Creative, a social media agency, launched the original app in July 2016 along with Lindsey Witmer Collins, her co-founder and head of product. Collins is a software designer and owner of LWC App Studio, based in San Francisco.

The company is self-funded, though it raised $41,254 through a Kickstarter campaign in August 2017 and has brought in some early revenue through partnerships, according to VanHaren.

Earlier this year, they began traveling the country in a 40-foot RV that’s been turned into a nursing and pumping suite to raise awareness and help build its online community.

“We’ve had an exciting year so far,” VanHaren tells Maine Startups Insider, “meeting 3,000 moms in person with the RV, getting to the finals at MassChallenge, and being featured in the September issue of Vogue. It has given me great energy to keep building a platform that makes the breastfeeding journey easier.”

MSI took the opportunity to ask VanHaren a few more questions about Pumpspotting and its future plans.

Why did you found the company?
Breastfeeding is vital to the health of moms and babies, but it’s also really hard. When nursing my son I was sleep deprived, pumping in bathrooms, shipping hundreds of ounces of milk, overwhelmed and completely isolated. Talking to other breastfeeding women was the one thing that helped me to continue nursing, so I decided to create a space that united all of us mothers to share support.

What’s your current focus in building the business?
We’re focusing on new app features, building our community, launching new products to support on a deeper level, and activating the second round of our Breast Express tour. (We’ve been traveling the country in a 40-foot RV nursing and pumping suite to unite breastfeeding women in person as well as on the app.)

What’s the next milestone?
Our goal is to help 100,000 women reach their breastfeeding goals in 2019.

How has being in MassChallenge helped you and your business?
Mass Challenge has opened a tremendous amount of doors for us and helped us learn a great deal about sides of building a business we hadn’t explored in depth yet. We’ve had a series of mentors who are introducing us to key partners and funding opportunities and helping us fine tune our business model. The best part has been working alongside a community of entrepreneurs day in and out, learning we’re not so alone in the startup journey and being inspired by some amazing leaders and world-changing ideas.

Anything else you’d like to add?
It’s really exciting for me to be building a company that helps women thrive and to be doing so from Maine. It’s easy to feel that startup success comes from certain geographic pockets and I like that we are opening doors in new ways.

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