• Queenly

  Participated · Seed · Apr 2021

  Queenly is a marketplace and search engine for the formalwear industry that combines a personalized resale marketplace experience with small-business sales and data analytic tools. Its core technology is a proprietary ML-driven search engine and computer vision system built in-house by cofounder Kathy Zhou. The platform runs on iOS, Android, and the web, all engineered and launched by Zhou. Queenly currently serves over 125,000 users and lists more than 60,000 unique dresses, with a total inventory value of $15 million. The company raised $6.3M in the latest round, bringing total funding to $7.1M, and plans to use the proceeds to grow the team and scale operations and engineering features. Founded in 2019 and based in San Francisco, Queenly targets formalwear shoppers and small sellers with its resale and analytics tools. Queenly runs a resale marketplace that lets individuals and partner small stores sell women's formal dresses at lower price points, positioning itself as a StockX-like service for formal wear. The platform accepts two supply sources—individual sellers and partner stores—with partner sellers so far providing lower-friction inventory. The company vets items differently by price: dresses priced at $300 or less ship directly from sellers after proof photos, while items above $300 are routed through Queenly’s operation for stricter quality control. Queenly argues the model can expand access to formalwear while reducing clothing waste. With new funding, the two-person founding team plans to grow to six full-time employees, adding two engineers, a head of growth and a head of ops. The company is a Y Combinator alum and emphasizes measured, sustainable growth over rapid hypergrowth. Queenly operates an online marketplace for new and resale formal dresses and gowns, listing over 50,000 items priced from $70 to $4,000 and up to size 32. Sellers receive 80% of sale proceeds while Queenly retains 20%, and the company says it can sell dresses within two weeks. The startup does not hold physical inventory: items under $200 are shipped directly by sellers via prepaid labels, while dresses over $200 are routed to Queenly for light dry cleaning, authentication, and fulfillment. Queenly reported roughly $500,000 in sales last year and attracts over 100,000 daily website visitors; it is part of Y Combinator's winter cohort. Shipping is cited as the company's largest cost, and the platform currently does not accept returns except when a dress is not as described. Product plans include onboarding boutique stores and designers through a Queenly partners program and beta-testing skin-tone search filters to improve match relevance.

No current team members are available.