Circle Media[1], the company behind Circle with Disney[2] – a device that helps parents enforce their home’s internet rules and restrictions – has raised $10 million in Series A funding, the company announced this morning. The round was led by early stage venture fund Relay Ventures. There was other private equity investment in the round, but the parties didn’t want to be named.
The Portland-based startup had previously raised $1.5 million[3] from angel investors.
The idea behind Circle with Disney is to offer parents a simpler way of managing the devices on their home network, including when family members are allowed to be online, and what content they’re able to access. This is not a novel concept, to be fair – numerous companies have offered internet control software in the past, and there are today several makers of network-attached hardware that can do much of what Circle with Disney can, too.
For example, Circle’s device competes with newer kid-safe routers like Torch, as well as modern routers that include parental control features, like Orbi, Eero, Luma, and others. It also takes on services like OpenDNS’s family shield or even the newer parental control applications rolling out from larger companies, like Comcast’s new Xfinity xFi app, Amazon’s FreeTime, or Google’s Family Link.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]
Like many of these devices and services, Circle with Disney allows parents to set device time limits, device “bedtimes,” configure internet and app filters, track web usage, and pause the home’s internet.
In fact, Apple’s failure to address some of these parental concerns – like being able to disable internet access, or setting screen time limits – within its iOS software has...
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