Zola operates a wedding registry and full marketplace that lets engaged couples register, manage guest lists, shop from roughly 600 brands (about 60,000 products) and use customizable checklists and planning tools. The company runs a proprietary drop-ship platform so it holds virtually no inventory and reports very low returns, selling at retail while buying at wholesale. More than 500,000 couples have used Zola’s registry or guest-list tools. Zola is a five-year-old, New York-based company with about 110 employees and earlier this year acquired the assets of a small wedding startup, bringing some of that team onboard. Founder and CEO Shan-Lyn Ma says the company plans to expand beyond registries across the wedding journey — from caterers and travel to potentially financial products such as mortgages — and would only consider Zola-branded products if demand cannot be met by partners. The company will use the new funding to accelerate product development and marketing while investing for growth and moving toward a healthfully profitable business model. Zola is an online wedding registry that lets couples choose products from a number of brands and set up cash funds. Guests can purchase products on a couple's Zola page and have items sent directly to the couple, avoiding in-store shopping and gift-wrapping logistics. Zola ties in with existing brands and allows users to import products from other sites to add to their registry. Couples can choose when their products arrive or convert gifts into Zola store credit. The company was started by Gilt founder Kevin Ryan in 2013. Prior to this latest round Zola had raised $15.85 million from investors including Thrive Capital, Canvas Ventures, Female Founders Fund and BBG Ventures. Zola is a New York–based provider of an online wedding and gift registry platform. Its registry combines gifts, experiences and cash funds in a single destination where couples can control when gifts ship, exchange products before shipment, and create fully customized pages with photos and messages for guests. Led by Shan-Lyn Ma, Nobu Nakaguchi and Kevin Ryan, the company focuses on integrating registry technology with user-facing customization. Zola raised $10m in a Series B round to scale its product and operations. The company said it will use the funds to expand its registry and technology and to increase marketing efforts. The platform emphasizes control and flexibility for couples managing their gift lists. Zola is a wedding-registry startup that blends content, Pinterest-like inspiration boards, and a wish-list/registry product into a customizable couple homepage and registry. The site lets users create collections (kitchen, honeymoon, experiences, etc.), add items from brands, and set up cash funds or group-contributed purchases. Zola partially operates as an e-commerce service, sourcing products from brands and currently lists about 1,000 items with ambitions to add more inventory. Couples can control shipping timing, receive purchase notifications, and mark items for group contributions. The product is led by former Gilt employees Shan-Lyn Ma and Nobu Nakaguchi and aims to tell a couple’s story through design-forward registry pages. The team leverages Gilt design experience to compete with other registry startups and expand product selection and services.

Total raised

$138M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Series D

Latest activity

May 2018