Ioana Axinte
Helping early years services scale home-based speech, language and communication support for 3-5 year-olds through expert-designed, tailored off-screen exercises.
Project
Play Moments
URL
Year founded
2024
Business stage
Seed
High-growth sectors
Digital and Technologies
Sector
Digital
Location
West Midlands
Funding
Funded Award Winner
The problem and opportunity
Early years services face growing demand to support children’s speech, language and communication, while specialist capacity remains limited. Families can wait months for tailored support, and existing provision is often generic, fragmented, expensive or hard to sustain at home. This creates a clear gap for adaptive, home-based support that helps services reach more families earlier and at scale.
The solution and innovation
Play Moments is an adaptive, evidence-informed platform that helps early years services extend support beyond appointments, settings and in-person programmes. It provides expert-created, off-screen activities and strategies, using AI to tailor delivery to each child’s developmental stage, family routine and level of need. This enables services to deliver targeted, consistent support into the home learning environment at scale.
Market and ambition
Play Moments is designed for local authorities, Family Hubs, NHS services, early years settings, speech and language teams and other organisations delivering early intervention. Our ambition is to become a trusted digital layer for early speech, language and communication support, helping services reach families earlier and reduce inequalities in access.
Founder perspective
Ioana Axinte founded Play Moments after seeing first-hand how many families face long waits, fragmented advice and limited practical support, while children’s skills in the first five years are developing rapidly. Play Moments turns waiting time into development time by helping services extend everyday support into the home.
Women in Innovation Award
Recipient of an Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award 2025/26, receiving tailored business support, and access to specialist training and networks. View all winners and highly commended applicants from the Women in Innovation cohort 2025/2026.