Two Bristol dads turned a sleepless baby problem into a global success story now used by families in more than 40 countries.

What started as a prototype made in a shed has grown into a global baby brand helping families around the world. They went on to win a Lloyds British Business Excellence Award for Export in 2023 and now Matt Dyson and Nick Webb are celebrating again after selling their one millionth Rockit Rocker – a portable device designed to help babies stay asleep in their pushchairs – nearly a decade after the idea was first dreamed up to solve a problem facing one very tired family.

The Bristol-based company, Rockit, was founded in 2016 after engineer Dr Nick Webb became frustrated that his three-month-old daughter Abby would only sleep while her pushchair was moving and, like many parents, he found himself endlessly walking to keep her asleep. Then, one evening, inspiration struck. Nick took apart an old printer, salvaged the motor and soldered together a makeshift device that could gently rock a stationary pushchair. The following day he tested it with Abby. It worked.

“She stayed asleep even when the pushchair stopped moving,” recalled Webb. “That was the moment I realised I might be onto something.”

Armed with a PhD in vibration and acoustics engineering, Nick teamed up with his brother-in-law Matt Dyson, a former product design teacher to transform the initial prototype into a commercial product. Working part-time they spent the next 18 months refining the idea and securing support from the Design Council before launching the Rockit Rocker in 2017. The hope was Rockit may help a few hundred families. Instead, it took off and within months, the product was being stocked nationwide by major retailers including John Lewis and JoJo Maman Bébé.

The success of Rockit enabled the team to own the baby sleep category, and the range expanded with the launch of ZED, a vibration soother and nightlight, and Wooshh, a small but mighty sound soother as well as a rechargeable version of Rockit that hit the market in 2023. Further product introductions are planned, with a significant launch for the Toddler Sleep category planned for July this year.

Today, Rockit products are sold in more than 40 countries across Europe, North America, Australia and Asia and the company has won multiple awards for the product range including accolades from Junior Design, Good Housekeeping and Made for Mums to name a few.

The company is celebrating reaching a major milestone when it recently sold its one millionth Rockit Rocker worldwide.

Matt Dyson said: “When we were developing the product, we didn’t dare dream it would become such a global success. After we launched, it was a couple of years before I spotted a Rockit ‘in the wild’. Now I have to pinch myself because every time I walk down the High Street I see several attached to pushchairs and prams. To think that something created by two ordinary dads in Bristol has now helped more than a million families around the world is pretty special.”

The company’s journey has included appearances in Vogue, features on BBC News and recognition from Buckingham Palace. In 2022, Rockit received two Queen’s Awards for Enterprise, one of the UK’s highest business honours, with the founders invited to
Buckingham Palace where they met Prince Charles.

“Meeting the future King was definitely one of our proudest moments,” said Dyson, “It was incredible to talk to him about the product and hear his interest in what we’d achieved.”

Despite its international growth, Rockit remains firmly rooted in Bristol, where the original idea was born. With the company expanding beyond its flagship stroller rocker to the impressive range of innovative baby sleep products it now offers, the founders say the mission remains the same as it was on day one: helping babies and parents get a little more sleep.