Apparent’s social network helps parents plan playdates for their kids

Tired of keeping track of and coordinating your kids’ playdates? New startup Apparent wants to help.

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Apparent’s app for the iPhone creates a small social network that connects parents with each other to make the playdate scheduling process easier.

“If you are a parent with young kids, you know the problem: The social currency for them is a playdate, and it’s a very complicated procedure, almost a social ritual,” Apparent CEO Gilad Katz told VentureBeat via email. “Apparent will help parents better organize their lives with kids. Find a worthy activity for their kids now, and make sure they don’t miss a playmate or activity ever again.”

Katz said his small team was deeply inspired by real-life issues surrounding playdates. He believes that parents need more tools to help them plan events for children ages 2 through 8.

“Our team is built of parents dealing with their kids’ social lives on a daily basis and we created Apparent for ourselves and for our children,” Katz said. “We really believe that using the Apparent app can help parents like us give their kids fuller and more active social lives. As parents we know we add a lot of value to parents, too, taking away the complexity and sometimes awkwardness of interacting with other parents.”

Because the app deals with children, security is especially important to consider. Apparent says it is a “private network” and it gives you “full control” of your family’s data.

Apparent’s presence on the iPhone is just the start. The company says apps for Android and Windows Phone are “coming soon” as well.

Principal at Greylock Partners Jason Elman said that as a father with young kids, this app is something his family would use.

“What is most interesting is the idea that you can create a real social network for all the parents of the kids at that age,” he said.  “There are so many things unique about that group, if you can figure out how to create a graph of the parents, similar to what LinkedIn did for professional world or Facebook for social graph, it could be become a large thing.”

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Tel Aviv-based Apparent was founded in 2011 and has three employees. It has raised a decent seed round from Jerusalem Venture Partners, and Katz said the company is “currently preparing for our next funding round.”

Take a look at the photos below to get a better idea of Apparent’s interface:

Apparent is one of 75 companies and 6 student “alpha” startups chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Fall 2012 event taking place this week in Silicon Valley. After we make our selections, the chosen companies pay a fee to present. Our coverage of them remains objective.

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Kids playing photo via Shuttestock