Sage Haven, a startup that has built an AI-moderated messaging and voice calling app for children, has officially launched its product following a beta period and closed $3 million in pre-seed funding. The company was cofounded by sisters Kate Doerksen and Anne Pizzuti, both mothers who were personally affected by a teenage family member’s experience with online bullying.

“This is the texting app parents have been waiting for. Group chats are where kids face frequent exposure to bullying, inappropriate content, and screen addiction.”

Anne Pizzuti, cofounder of Sage Haven

The numbers behind the launch are hard to ignore. According to the Cyberbullying Research Center’s 2025 survey, 58% of U.S. teens have experienced cyberbullying, with incidents doubling between 2016 and 2025. What many parents do not realize is that group chatting often starts well before the teenage years. Children as young as elementary school age are messaging on smartwatches, tablets, and phones, and the problems that come with it, bullying, inappropriate content, and screen addiction, show up early too.

The $3 million pre-seed round was led by Hustle Fund, How Women Invest, LaunchTN, NextBlue, Gaingels, ExitFund, Graham & Walker, Fuel Venture Capital, and scout funds from Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, and Kleiner Perkins. Individual investors include Andrew Yang, former U.S. presidential candidate and cofounder of Noble Mobile, and the cofounder of SoFi.

Why Children’s Online Safety Has Become a Bigger Concern

Over the past several years, investors, policymakers, and parents have paid more attention to the risks children face in digital spaces, particularly in unmoderated messaging environments. Most tools that exist today are built around restriction: screen time limits, content filters, app blockers. They address access. They do not address what happens inside a conversation.

Sage Haven takes a different approach. Its AI moderation is designed to block harmful messages, links, images, and videos before they reach the recipient. The app also prompts children toward kinder communication as they type. Most safety features on consumer apps act after the fact. This one is meant to act before.

The company is registered as a Public Benefit Corporation. That legal structure requires a company to weigh its public mission against shareholder interests, rather than prioritize profit above everything else. For Sage Haven, that stated mission is improving the mental health and well-being of children. It is a distinction that may matter to both investors and the families the product serves.

How Sage Haven Works and Where It Is Heading

The company has not disclosed a detailed breakdown of how the funding will be used. Product development is ongoing. Sage Haven currently works on iOS devices, including iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches. An Android version is in development, with a waitlist already live.

One design decision sets Sage Haven apart from other children’s apps. Rather than building a closed network that requires everyone to sign up, the app assigns each child a dedicated phone number. Friends and family can keep using iMessage, Google Messages, or any other standard messaging app. The child’s messages pass through Sage Haven’s moderation layer regardless of what the other person is using. That means protection does not depend on convincing an entire contact list to switch platforms.

The company also runs Sage Parents, a free resource for families thinking through technology decisions, and hosts a weekly podcast called Sage Sisters, produced by the two founders.

The Founders Behind Sage Haven

Doerksen and Pizzuti started Sage Haven in August 2023. Doerksen holds an MBA from Stanford and previously cofounded Ditto, a company that used augmented reality (technology that overlays digital information onto the real world) to let customers try on glasses online. Ditto grew to more than 70 million annual users before being acquired by 1-800-Contacts in 2021. Both founders have said the company was inspired by a teenage family member who went through a mental health crisis connected to online bullying.

The app is aimed at children roughly between the ages of 8 and 12, the window when group chats typically begin but smartphones and social media have not yet entered the picture. Parents run the app from their own phone. They approve every contact, receive alerts about flagged messages, and read AI-generated conversation recaps. The child gets a degree of independence. The parent stays informed without having to grab the child’s device.

Because the app works as a communication layer over existing platforms rather than a standalone messaging network, it does not require other participants in a conversation to use Sage Haven at all.

The Investors Behind the Round

The pre-seed round brought together a mix of institutional funds and mission-focused investors. Hustle Fund and How Women Invest led the round, joined by LaunchTN, NextBlue, Gaingels, ExitFund, Graham & Walker, and Fuel Venture Capital. Scout funds from a16z, Accel, and Kleiner Perkins also took part, alongside individual investors including Andrew Yang and the cofounder of SoFi.

Origianl Creator: Ekaterina Pisareva
Original Link: https://justainews.com/companies/funding-news/sage-haven-launches-ai-moderated-chat-app-for-kids/
Originally Posted: Thu, 16 Apr 2026 16:35:03 +0000