Mother wins award for investment app to support children

A NEW mother of twins has won a national award after spending a “challenging” year founding a financial technology startup while pregnant.

Sophia Jarvis, 32, who lives in Henley town centre, has won a Britain’s Got Startups award for her financial investment and gifting app, Mia Wealth.

Shortly after giving birth to twins Lily and Rose in March, Mrs Jarvis completed several rounds of interviews and pitches and then defeated 400 competitors at the final in July.

The mobile app, which is currently in development, will allow parents to set up an investment pot for their child which friends and family can make contributions to.

The chartered financial analyst said: “When my twins were born, people were so generous with gifts but I found it quite overwhelming as it added to my mental load.

“I had to remember who gave what, write thank-you cards and try to get photos of the babies in whatever outfit someone had got them. That was on top of the 100 things on my to-do list every day.

“Speaking to a lot of my mum friends, we all feel the same. We’re in this culture where we give a lot of gifts and a lot of us don’t have the room to store them.”

Mrs Jarvis, who has worked in financial services for more than 10 years, left her job as a family wealth manager last September to find “an alternative way of gifting”.

She said: “I helped hundreds of families build wealth for themselves but also for their children and I was getting frustrated that what I was setting up for the children of the families I was working with isn’t easily available to everyone.

“So I thought, why don’t I create an app which makes it really easy for parents, family and friends to give a meaningful contribution of their choice to a child’s investment account? Either instead of, or alongside, physical gifts.

“That money can then grow over time and be used towards the child’s future, like university fees, or helping them to be able to afford their first house deposit.”

When a child turns 16, their investment pot will be moved to another app Mrs Jarvis hopes to develop for teenagers.

She said: “What we want to do through our app is provide financial education for children so we can help them learn about the things we need to learn about when we become a young adult.”

Mrs Jarvis, who first met her husband when they were pupils at Rupert House School, found out she was pregnant around the same time she left her job.

“I knew it was going to be challenging in terms of timing and it was, of course, but now I’ve got the twins here I’m designing an app for me as a parent — I am the target market. That just brings it to life a whole lot more and makes me even more driven to do this.”

Mrs Jarvis began raising money for her startup in December. She said: “Going out and raising money as a pregnant, female founder, you do get told ‘no’ because of the pregnancy.

“People are quite open about it, they don’t know how it’s going to work when you have your children and how you’re going to balance it.”

After Lily and Rose were born Mrs Jarvis pitched at a regional final of the Britain’s Got Startups awards in Oxford and got through to the national final, which she won.

“It was just incredible,” she said. “As a business you need to celebrate the wins when they happen and it was just so lovely to get that recognition for the team.” Mrs Jarvis balances her time working on the app with her family. She said: “It’s full on and the nights are tough when they’re not sleeping and they’re teething and you’ve got a busy day at work the next day.

“But they teach me to slow down and embrace the magical moments that you do have throughout the day. They are my biggest achievement, no matter what I do in life.”

Mrs Jarvis hopes to launch Mia Wealth in early 2026, with Lily and Rose set to be the first to test it later this year.