From first steps to walking

Twelve months ago Hoop was a team of 14 and the app was being used by a thousand families in a small part of north London. Fast forward to today and team Hoop is now 30 people strong. What’s more the app is now available across all of London and in six other cities too — covering a parent population of over three million. We’ve been featured in the Evening Standard, The Huffington Post, the Metro and more recently the Sunday Times too. To top it all off Apple chose Hoop as one of the Best Apps of 2016.

One of the great things about last year was discovering so many amazing things happening for children across the country. We’re regularly blown away by the creativity of the thousands of organisers who help kids laugh, learn and see the world in a new way — activities such as the Family Bollywood Session in Bristol, a Robot Programming Workshop in Liverpool and Junior Jam’s African Drumming and Singing session in Manchester.

The sheer quantity of activities on Hoop has also sky rocketed. From a few thousand at the start of the year to over 18,000 unique activities on Hoop at anyone time. During the course of 2016 we’ve seen 3,429 stay and plays, 281 Lego building sessions, 7,367 activities that are completely free. And, our personal favourite, 138 kid friendly raves!

2017 is going to be even more fun…

First of all we’re planning to bring Hoop to the whole country. You’re going to be able to use Hoop in every single city and, for the first time, in rural parts of the country too. Hoop isn’t just for city dwellers.

Second we have a host of new features in the pipeline that we can’t wait to share with you all. We want to make your experience using Hoop better than ever, and, as we have done with every update, we’re going to continue to put the experiences of the families who use Hoop front and centre.

Finally we’re going to make it easier for the organisers running kid-friendly activities to share what they’re doing and build up their profile on the app. It’s no exaggeration to say that Hoop would be nothing without their hard work and we want to make their lives a little easier too.

Thank you!

Finally, we wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who has made Hoop possible over the last year. To the families and the organisers. To all the people who have taken part in research. To those who have sent in their ideas and to those who have shared activities. We’re looking forward to making you all smile in the year ahead.