Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc. designs and delivers innovative education and care solutions.
The company is a leading provider of high-quality early education and child care, family care solutions, and workforce education services that are designed to help working families and client employees thrive personally and professionally. The company provides services primarily under multi-year contracts with employers who offer early education and child care, back-up care, and educational advis...
Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc. designs and delivers innovative education and care solutions.
The company is a leading provider of high-quality early education and child care, family care solutions, and workforce education services that are designed to help working families and client employees thrive personally and professionally. The company provides services primarily under multi-year contracts with employers who offer early education and child care, back-up care, and educational advisory services as part of their employee benefits package. These benefits help employers support their employees across life and career stages and improve recruitment, employee engagement, productivity, retention, and career advancement. The company is committed to providing the highest quality education and care across all of its offerings.
The company is organized into three reportable segments, which are aligned with its service offerings as follows:
Full service center-based child care (73% of the company’s revenue in 2024);
Back-up care (23% of the company’s revenue in 2024); and
Educational advisory services (4% of the company’s revenue in 2024).
As of December 31, 2024, the company had more than 1,450 employer client relationships across a diverse array of industries, including more than 220 Fortune 500 companies. As of December 31, 2024, the company operated 1,019 early education and child care centers with the capacity to serve approximately 115,000 children in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, and India.
The company operates in the growing market for back-up care, which consists of center-based back-up care and in-home care, as well as school-age programs (including camps and tutoring), senior care, and pet care. The company also operates in the educational advisory services market, which consists of workforce education, tuition assistance, student loan repayment, and related educational advising, as well as college admissions and college financing advisory services.
The company is dedicated to investing in quality to fulfill its commitment to research-based early education excellence. The company’s centers are designed to meet rigorous accreditation and rating standards established by leading organizations, such as the National Academy of Early Childhood Programs, a division of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) in the United States, by the Office of Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (OFSTED) in the United Kingdom, and by the Education Council and Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) in Australia.
Growth Strategy
The company’s strategies are to grow its client relationships (secure relationships with new employer clients; cross-sell and expand services to existing employer clients; and continue to expand through the assumption of existing sponsored child care centers and tuition assistance programs); increase utilization in all lines of business and investments in growth; and selectively add new lease/consortium centers and expand through acquisitions.
Operations
The company’s services are designed to help families, employers, and their employees solve the challenges of the modern workforce across life and career stages. The company’s services consist of full service center-based child care, back-up care, and educational advisory services, which are also its reportable segments. Full service center-based child care includes traditional center-based early education and child care, preschool, and elementary education. Back-up care includes center-based back-up child care, in-home care for children and seniors, school-age programs (including camps and tutoring), pet care, self-sourced reimbursed care, and Sittercity, an online marketplace for families and caregivers.
Full Service Center-Based Child Care Services
The company provides full service center-based child care at centers located at or near an employer sponsor’s worksite, as well as convenient locations within the community. The company operates its centers under two principal business models: a profit and loss (‘P&L’) model and a cost-plus model.
Profit and Loss Model: Approximately 75% of the company’s centers operate under the P&L model. Under this model, the company retains the financial outcomes of operating the center and is therefore subject to variability in financial performance due to fluctuations in enrollment levels. The P&L model is further classified into two subcategories:
Sponsor model: Under the sponsor model, the company provides early education and child care on an exclusive or priority enrollment basis for the employees of an employer sponsor, and the employer sponsor generally retains responsibility for the development of the child care center (which is owned or leased by the sponsor), as well as pre-opening capital equipment and ongoing maintenance and repair. Arrangements with employer sponsors generally have initial terms ranging from 3 to 10 years with varying terms, renewal, and termination options.
Lease model: Under the lease model, the child care center is typically located near where working parents live and/or work in a property that the company leases, and the company provides early education and child care services to the employees of multiple employers, as well as to families in the surrounding community. The company typically enters into leases with initial terms ranging from 10 to 15 years for these centers, often with renewal options.
When the company opens a new P&L center, it generally takes two to three years for the center to ramp up to a steady state level of enrollment, as a center will typically enroll younger children at the outset with children aging into the older (preschool) classrooms over time. The company refers to centers that have been open for three years or less as ‘ramping centers.’ A P&L center will typically achieve breakeven operating performance between 12 to 24 months and will typically achieve a steady state level of enrollment that supports the company’s average center operating profit by the end of three years, although the time period needed to reach a steady state level of enrollment may be longer or shorter. Centers that have been open for more than three years are referred to as ‘mature centers.’
Cost Plus Model: Approximately 25% of the company’s centers operate under the cost-plus business model. Under this model, the company receives a fee from the employer sponsor for managing and operating their center. Additionally, employer sponsors typically provide operating subsidies to support the ongoing provision of child care services to their employees if center operating costs exceed revenue from tuition paid by parents. The employer sponsor typically retains responsibility for the development of the child care center (which is owned or leased by the sponsor), as well as pre-opening capital equipment and ongoing maintenance and repair, and the center is profitable from the outset. The company’s cost-plus contracts typically have initial terms ranging from three to five years with varying terms, renewal, and termination options.
Under all model types, the company retains responsibility for all aspects of operating the child care center, including hiring and paying employees, ongoing training, curriculum, contracting with vendors, purchasing supplies, and collecting tuition.
Tuition paid by families generally represents approximately 90% of the revenue generated by this segment and is determined based on the age and developmental level of the child, the child’s attendance schedule (full-time or part-time), the geographic location, and the extent to which an employer sponsor subsidizes tuition. Tuition at most of the company’s early education and child care centers is payable in advance and is typically due monthly.
Back-up Care Services
Back-up care offers family support services for dependents of all ages and provides coverage when regular care breaks down, as well as care coordination tools to assist families with their short and long-term care needs. The company provides back-up care services for children (primarily 0-12 years old) through its own full service child care centers, dedicated back-up child care centers, school-age programs (including camps), and in-home caregivers, as well as through its proprietary back-up care network of quality child care centers, camps, and in-home care providers. In addition, the company provides back-up care services for seniors through its proprietary network of quality in-home care providers, tutoring for school-age children and adult learners through its network of tutoring service providers, pet care through third-party providers, and also helps to facilitate back-up care services through its self-sourced reimbursed care program. The company also owns and operates Sittercity, an online marketplace that helps families and caregivers find, among other things, child care (child care providers, babysitting/nannies), senior care, and pet care services.
Traditional back-up care offers families access to a contracted network of more than 5,000 in-home care agencies and center-based providers in locations where the company does not otherwise have centers with available capacity or available in-home caregivers. The company’s dedicated back-up centers are operated in a similar structure to full service centers and are either exclusive to a single employer or have multiple employer sponsors and are part of its back-up care program. Self-sourced reimbursed care is an alternative care program, available to employer sponsors typically when other network care solutions are not available, which provides payments to their employees to assist with the cost of self-sourced dependent care. Back-up care solutions include broader school-age programs, such as camps and tutoring, with camps primarily operating during school vacations and the summer months. Back-up care requests are arranged online or via its mobile app, as well as through a 24/7 contact center, allowing users to reserve care in advance or at the last minute. The company operates its own contact center and contracts with additional contact centers in other geographies to complement its ability to handle demand fluctuations, provide business continuity, and deliver seamless service across time zones.
Back-up care revenue consists of fees paid by employer sponsors and, to a lesser extent, co-payments collected from users at the time of service. These arrangements generally have contractual terms of three years with varying terms, renewal, and termination options. Fees for back-up care services are typically determined based on the number of back-up care uses purchased and may be fixed for a specified number of contracted uses or variable for pay-per-use contracts.
Educational Advisory Services
The company’s educational advisory services consist of EdAssist and College Coach. Educational advisory services revenue consists of fees paid by employer clients for policy consulting, program management, coaching, subscription content, and, to a limited extent, retail fees collected from users at the point of service. Contracts are typically three years in length, with varying terms, renewal, and termination options, and fees are generally determined based on the services being provided and the number of program participants.
EdAssist: EdAssist provides workforce education, tuition assistance, and student loan repayment program management, as well as related educational advising to corporate clients who offer these services as a talent development and workplace benefit to their employees. The company’s services help employers better align their workplace education programs with their business goals while supporting employees to upskill, re-skill, and improve their careers. Program management services are provided through proprietary software for the processing of tuition reimbursement, loan repayment transactions, and analysis of data. The company provides educational advising to its client’s employees on a one-on-one basis through its team of advisors who help users make informed decisions regarding their education and financial wellness. EdAssist services derive revenue directly from fees paid by employers.
College Coach: College Coach provides college admissions and college financing advisory services through its team of experts, who have experience working in admissions or financial aid at colleges and universities. The company also offers coaching and tools to assist families as they support their children with varying needs across life stages. Advisory services are delivered via live/webinar events with expert presenters, through one-on-one coaching, and through the company’s online learning center. The company works with employer clients who offer these services as workplace benefits to their employees, and it also provides these services directly to families on a retail basis. College Coach derives revenue mainly from employer clients who contract with the company for a specified number of workshops, access to the company’s proprietary online learning center, and one-on-one advising.
Geography
The company operates in two primary regions: North America, which includes the company’s operations in the United States (including Puerto Rico), and International, which includes the company’s operations in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, and India.
The company’s international business primarily consists of child care centers throughout the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Australia, with 92% of the revenue generated related to the full service center-based child care segment. As of December 31, 2024, the company had 599 centers in North America and 420 international centers.
Seasonality
Historically, the company’s full service center-based child care and back-up care operations are subject to seasonal and quarterly fluctuations. Demand for early education and child care services has historically decreased during the summer months when school is not in session and families are often on vacation or have alternative child care arrangements. In addition, enrollment at the company’s child care centers declines as older children transition to elementary schools. Demand for the company’s services generally increases with the beginning of the new school year and remains relatively stable throughout the rest of the school year (year ended December 31, 2024). Use of the company’s back-up care services tends to be higher when schools are not in session and during holiday periods.
Marketing
Brand Awareness and Thought Leadership
The company markets its services and builds its brand through events, social media, earned and paid media placements, digital and print advertising, articles and blogs, direct mail, and a robust search engine optimization strategy. The company’s senior leaders are involved at the national level with education, work/life, and early child care advocacy, and their visibility and involvement help attract new business. The company conducts its annual Modern Family Index and The Education Index, capturing snapshots of sentiments of critical market sectors at a particular moment in time.
Timely Approaches that Evolve with the Workplace
The company strives to meet clients’ needs as demonstrated by its capacity to pivot as the marketplace shifts, rolling out and marketing new services to meet evolving work environments. Marketing tools have expanded to include text message communication; targeted back-up journeys and campaigns; outreach for flexible care offerings, including options, such as tutoring and camps; and sharing its curriculum and extension activities with families at home through its online platforms. Outreach for these efforts includes campaigns for back-to-school and return-to-office support; initiatives aimed at supporting enrolled families, including age-based developmental notifications through the company’s parent mobile app; a monthly parenting newsletter; podcasts; and a parenting exchange workshop series.
Lead Generation and Conversion; Customer Retention
Lead generation and conversion, increased utilization, and customer retention remain at the heart of the company’s marketing efforts. The company partners with employer sponsors to promote its early education and child care centers and other workplace solutions as important employee benefits within their organizations. My Bright Horizons is a portal for the company’s clients’ employees to instantly access their Bright Horizons benefits, and BH Central is a self-service portal for client liaisons to track real-time benefit use and access materials to support internal marketing efforts, including a newsletter with tailored resource content. Other efforts include local digital advertising, partnerships with parent groups, social efforts, direct mail, and webinars.
Competition
The company’s principal competitors for employer-sponsored centers include KinderCare Education in the United States and Busy Bees in the United Kingdom. The company also competes for enrollment on a center-by-center basis with these providers, along with many local and national providers, such as Affinity Education Group, CompaNanny, G8 Education, Goddard Schools, Goodstart Early Learning, Guardian Childcare & Education, KidsFoundation, Kids Planet, Learning Care Group, Partou, and Primrose Schools. Competition for back-up care comes from IAC/Interactivecorp (Care.com) in addition to employee assistance programs and smaller work/life companies. In the educational advisory segment, competition comes from EdCor, Guild Education, InStride, and Tuition.io, as well as other smaller providers entering the market.
Intellectual Property
The company owns and uses various registered and unregistered trademarks covering the names Bright Horizons and Bright Horizons Family Solutions, the company’s logo, and a number of other names, slogans, and designs in the United States and abroad. The company frequently licenses the use of its registered trademarks to its clients in connection with the use of its services, subject to customary restrictions. The company protects its trademarks by registering the marks in a variety of countries and geographic areas, including the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, India, and other countries in Asia.
History
The company was founded in 1986. It was incorporated in 2008. The company was formerly known as Bright Horizons Solutions Corp. and changed its name to Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc. in 2012.
