Introduction
Affordable and accessible childcare is one of the most important barriers to achieving gender equality. Many people are forced to stay home, work reduced hours, or take on jobs with lower pay in order to accommodate childcare needs in a system that does not provide good options.
Enter Mirza to help contribute to a solution. Named after Maryam Mirzakhani, the first woman to win the Fields Medal in mathematics, Mirza is a fintech company that has developed a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform to help employers and workers navigate government and state-level childcare support programs in the United States. Mirza was founded by Mel Faxon and Siran Cao, who observed how their family and friends experienced systemic childcare shortages and the motherhood penalty. With the goal of making access to childcare benefits simple and easy, Mirza offers a platform that connects private sector players with funds from the public sector. Integrated with employers’ HR systems, the platform allows employees to discover, in just a few clicks, which subsidies and supports they are eligible for.
To maximize impact, Mirza focuses on employers with a high proportion of frontline workers at the lower end of the income distribution, such as call centers. By working closely with hourly and low-wage workers, Mirza has developed a deep understanding of their needs—not just resource constraints but also literacy barriers—and has customized solutions to address them. Mirza plans to leverage the lessons learned from improving accessibility in government-funded childcare to expand into other care economies, such as elder care and school lunch programs. This case shares the story of how Mirza was founded, the challenges they faced, the pivots they made to find the right business model, and some of their early successes.
TO VIEW AND DOWNLOAD THE FULL CASE STUDY, FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS.
This case was written by Hyeun Lee and Sarah Kaplan. We are grateful for the participation of Mel Faxon and Siran Cao.